InFocus Magazine

It’s an amazing cornucopia, ampoule
but a bit overwhelming: there are approximately 3,000 grant-making foundations in Canada, according to the non-profit agency Imagine Canada, which offers an online database of these organizations.

That number, and the database, are impressive, but also can be intimidating to a grassroots initiative needing funds for a local cause, or to a potential donor who wants to be sure their money is well-spent and kept within their own community.

Luckily for the people of the Comox Valley, one name on the database is the Comox Valley Community Foundation (CVCF). The CVCF is run by locals for locals, giving both donors and recipients a personal, direct connection to the charitable process.

Since it was founded in 1996, the CVCF has given more than $1 million to well over 100 local charitable projects, and to educational institutions through student bursaries. In 2011, it gave away $32,000 to eight projects. The range of the recipients reflects the Comox Valley’s diversity, and the CVCF’s five focus areas: arts and culture, environment, seniors, health and welfare, and education and youth.

The CVCF has supported environmental groups, sports teams, theatres, museums, arts groups, search and rescue, salmon hatcheries, and community forests; it has helped build docks, therapeutic gardens, therapeutic riding facilities, playgrounds, fitness centres, trails, resource centres and a skate park. It addresses issues from homelessness to hunger, to domestic violence, and more.

“It’s nice to be able to support such a tremendous number and diversity of groups,” says Lorne Harder, CVCF president. Harder, an insurance broker, was invited to join the board when his sister, who’d been involved since the Foundation’s inception, stepped off. He says he didn’t hesitate to say yes.

“I like to be involved in community and this is my charity of choice. It’s local and very efficient,” says Harder.
This diversity is one of the hallmarks of a community foundation—a special type of grant-making organization that collects and distributes funds within a defined region.

The CVCF is one of 46 community foundations in British Columbia; there are more than 170 in Canada, which together hold more than $2.4 billion in shared assets.

Other than the limited geographical focus, the other defining characteristic of community foundations is their total reliance on an endowment fund. This means that all donations are pooled in a fund that is never spent, but instead invested. The annual earnings are distributed as grants, while the principal stays untouched, and grows continuously as more donations come in.

“The nice thing about this is that people making donations know it is a forever gift—there will always be a community foundation, and their money will always be doing good in the Comox Valley,” says Wendy Lewis, CVCF board member and treasurer. Lewis is a chartered accountant, and like Harder, she stepped up to fill a gap on the Board when her partner, Ben Vanderhorst, stepped down.

When people give money to a community foundation, Lewis explains, they often have the whole community interest at heart and don’t want to direct their support toward one specific issue.

Donors are welcome to target the funds they give to general issues, such as “animal welfare” or “children,” but not to get more specific than that, and most donations go into the general discretionary fund.

“The way this works means you can touch a lot of good things with one donation,” says Lewis.

“Also,” adds Harder, “Because we are broad in focus we can adjust to changing needs in the community.”

The endowment fund ensures the CVCF’s longevity. As the economy waxes and wanes and markets rise and fall, the CVCF will have more or less money to disburse, but their ongoing existence is secured. Donors need to trust that the 17-member board to have an accurate and in-depth understanding of community needs and to respond accordingly, and to steward their money wisely.

“This is not just an oversight board; it’s a very hands-on active board,” says Harder. “Our guidelines specify that we have to have a very diverse board. The first priority is to bring the skill sets needed to run the foundation. Also, we need people who are connected enough to the community, and as broad a representation of the Comox Valley as possible.”

Lewis continues: “So we look for a mix of people from accounting, the school district, hospital and other sectors.”

Because there is so much work involved, the CVCF board attracts people who are truly passionate about the Foundation’s work. For instance, long-term CVCF supporter Richard Graham has contributed both as a volunteer and a donor. Graham is a retired retail jeweler (from Graham’s Jewellers, now run by Graham’s son) who got involved when the CVCF was founded.

“The Foundation was Stan Hagen’s idea and he enlisted people like Richard Swift, Murray Presley and Judith Harder. I was asked to join the board right at the beginning in 1995 and served for five years. I was the Fund Development Chairman for those five years,” Graham recalls.

“We started out with zero money but we had the help and advice of the Vancouver Foundation, which is the biggest community foundation in Canada, and we had just over a million when I left the board.”

“The whole thing was a volunteer effort those first five years,” Graham adds. “We didn’t spend one cent on administration.” Currently, the Foundation hires one part-time staff person, but otherwise is scrupulous about keeping its administrative costs low.

As well as giving copiously of his time, Graham and his wife, Valerie, have donated money regularly over the years. “There are two things I like about giving money to the CVCF,” he says. “The first is that you know the money will keep giving forever. The second is that the interest from the funds goes to charitable and worthy groups in the Comox Valley, rather than off in Vancouver or somewhere else.”

There are many different ways people can contribute to the CVCF, says Graham.

“When I joined we had no money at all. My wife and I made a commitment to give $5,000 before I left the board. We managed that and have been giving ever since. We donate six to eight times a year, mostly through In Memoriam gifts for significant people in our lives who have passed away. It’s so easy to do—you just phone the office and give them your information. It takes just a few minutes. They send a letter to the families of the person who’s passed away, and this has the added benefit of spreading the word about the foundation,” says Graham.

While the donors clearly get a great deal out of their relationship with the CVCF, obviously it is the recipient organizations, and the people they serve, who benefit the most.

“We are very, very, very grateful to the Comox Valley Community Foundation,” says Anne Davis, Program Coordinator at the Comox Valley Transition Society, which this year received $5,000 to renovate the laundry room at Lilli House, their home for women and children who are escaping abusive relationships.

“Try to imagine the state of our laundry room,” Davis says with a laugh, and explains: “We’ve been in operation for 18 years, which means somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 women and children have come through. The laundry room had never been renovated before. It had been poorly laid out to begin with and was in horrible condition. Now it is beautiful, and efficient.

“The CVCF has been great to work with,” she adds. “They are very community-minded and very concerned to be helpful in a practical way.

“And for women who stay at Lilli House, who are in really, really difficult circumstances, this kind of donation sends a powerful message that the community cares about them.”

Davis says the CVCF is much more accessible than most other types of foundations. “These are people we rub shoulders with on a daily basis, who really know our community. With other types of grant applications, we have to spend lots and lots of time explaining and describing where we live—not so with the CVCF.”

The CVCF wants to hear from as wide a variety of charitable organizations as possible. They provide support to grant-seekers by offering an annual granting seminar, which takes potential applicants through the whole application process, making sure they understand what is required and what is and isn’t eligible for funding.

CVCF grants range from $1,000 to $20,000 and can only be given to groups who are a registered charity. The Foundation does not cover regular operating expenses such as staffing, and will not cover 100 per cent of a project’s costs. Beyond that there are few limitations.

In addition to the Transition Society, grant recipients for 2011 included L’Arche Comox Valley, the Cumberland Community Forest Society, the Tsolum River Restoration Society, Comox Valley Project Watershed, the Black Creek Community Association, the Cumberland & District Historical Society, and the Sid Williams Theatre Society Endowment Fund.

In early January, grant recipients and Foundation donors will be guests at a special event called the Grant Tea.

“This annual event is the highlight of our year and what we are all about,” says Kathy Penner, vice chair of the Distribution Committee for CVCF. “We have the pleasure of formally handing cheques to these worthy organizations, and donors learn first-hand about the wide variety of projects that their contributions go toward.”

A total of 10 charities will receive funding for the coming year for a wide range of projects, ranging from equipment for therapeutic riding to archival storage containers for a museum.

The level of competition for funding is variable year by year, says Lewis, depending both on the level of community need and the amount of funds available to give. “Some years we are flush and in others we don’t have enough to fund everyone we’d like to,” she says.

When groups are awarded a grant, they are matched with a board member who helps steward the grant, and who reports back to the other board members.

This is one of the best parts of being a board member, says Lewis. “The biggest reward of all this is seeing things happen. The Comox Valley is my community, and to be able to provide sustained support is a really, really big deal.

“We all tend to live in our own little bubbles, but there are groups that truly are needy and deserving, and when you find them it’s nice to have a foundation with a perpetual income stream to support them.”

There are lots of ways to support the CVCF, says Lewis. “You can just go to the website and hit the “Make a Donation” button. It’s that easy. Or you can make a bequest through your will so that a gift comes out of your estate. You can make a gift of cash, stocks, bonds, real estate, or other assets,” she says.

As a chartered accountant, Lewis is eager to explain that charitable giving can have significant tax benefits. “Under Canadian tax law, for every dollar you give over $200 annually, you get a 43 per cent tax credit. So it costs just 57 cents to donate a dollar. It’s a pretty good bang for your buck. There are also huge tax benefits for gifts of securities, especially those with gains. It’s a real windfall from a tax perspective, for you or your estate.”

While Lewis is of course eager to solicit more donations to CVCF’s endowment fund, she says the foundation is careful not to compete with other local non-profit groups for local funds.

“Our mandate is to support other local charities, not compete with them. We are all contributing to the fabric of a vibrant, healthy Comox Valley. The CVCF doesn’t do our own projects. Instead we get to be really diverse and to give support in small doses, where it can make an immediate, practical difference,” she says.

She and Harder are both deeply appreciative of the work done by the Comox Valley’s many charitable organizations.

“The cool thing about the Comox Valley is that we have a large number of people who are involved in volunteer and charitable work, with an incredibly wide range—whether it’s mountain sports, homelessness, head injuries, children, or so many other issues… it’s so diverse,” says Lewis. “This is a community of giving.” The Comox Valley Community Foundation is clearly an integral part of that.

For more information about the Comox Valley Community Foundation, visit their website at:
www.cvcfoundation.org

It’s an amazing cornucopia, ask
but a bit overwhelming: there are approximately 3,000 grant-making foundations in Canada, according to the non-profit agency Imagine Canada, which offers an online database of these organizations.

That number, and the database, are impressive, but also can be intimidating to a grassroots initiative needing funds for a local cause, or to a potential donor who wants to be sure their money is well-spent and kept within their own community.

Luckily for the people of the Comox Valley, one name on the database is the Comox Valley Community Foundation (CVCF). The CVCF is run by locals for locals, giving both donors and recipients a personal, direct connection to the charitable process.

Since it was founded in 1996, the CVCF has given more than $1 million to well over 100 local charitable projects, and to educational institutions through student bursaries. In 2011, it gave away $32,000 to eight projects. The range of the recipients reflects the Comox Valley’s diversity, and the CVCF’s five focus areas: arts and culture, environment, seniors, health and welfare, and education and youth.

The CVCF has supported environmental groups, sports teams, theatres, museums, arts groups, search and rescue, salmon hatcheries, and community forests; it has helped build docks, therapeutic gardens, therapeutic riding facilities, playgrounds, fitness centres, trails, resource centres and a skate park. It addresses issues from homelessness to hunger, to domestic violence, and more.

“It’s nice to be able to support such a tremendous number and diversity of groups,” says Lorne Harder, CVCF president. Harder, an insurance broker, was invited to join the board when his sister, who’d been involved since the Foundation’s inception, stepped off. He says he didn’t hesitate to say yes.

“I like to be involved in community and this is my charity of choice. It’s local and very efficient,” says Harder.
This diversity is one of the hallmarks of a community foundation—a special type of grant-making organization that collects and distributes funds within a defined region.

The CVCF is one of 46 community foundations in British Columbia; there are more than 170 in Canada, which together hold more than $2.4 billion in shared assets.

Other than the limited geographical focus, the other defining characteristic of community foundations is their total reliance on an endowment fund. This means that all donations are pooled in a fund that is never spent, but instead invested. The annual earnings are distributed as grants, while the principal stays untouched, and grows continuously as more donations come in.

“The nice thing about this is that people making donations know it is a forever gift—there will always be a community foundation, and their money will always be doing good in the Comox Valley,” says Wendy Lewis, CVCF board member and treasurer. Lewis is a chartered accountant, and like Harder, she stepped up to fill a gap on the Board when her partner, Ben Vanderhorst, stepped down.

When people give money to a community foundation, Lewis explains, they often have the whole community interest at heart and don’t want to direct their support toward one specific issue.

Donors are welcome to target the funds they give to general issues, such as “animal welfare” or “children,” but not to get more specific than that, and most donations go into the general discretionary fund.

“The way this works means you can touch a lot of good things with one donation,” says Lewis.

“Also,” adds Harder, “Because we are broad in focus we can adjust to changing needs in the community.”

The endowment fund ensures the CVCF’s longevity. As the economy waxes and wanes and markets rise and fall, the CVCF will have more or less money to disburse, but their ongoing existence is secured. Donors need to trust that the 17-member board to have an accurate and in-depth understanding of community needs and to respond accordingly, and to steward their money wisely.

“This is not just an oversight board; it’s a very hands-on active board,” says Harder. “Our guidelines specify that we have to have a very diverse board. The first priority is to bring the skill sets needed to run the foundation. Also, we need people who are connected enough to the community, and as broad a representation of the Comox Valley as possible.”

Lewis continues: “So we look for a mix of people from accounting, the school district, hospital and other sectors.”

Because there is so much work involved, the CVCF board attracts people who are truly passionate about the Foundation’s work. For instance, long-term CVCF supporter Richard Graham has contributed both as a volunteer and a donor. Graham is a retired retail jeweler (from Graham’s Jewellers, now run by Graham’s son) who got involved when the CVCF was founded.

“The Foundation was Stan Hagen’s idea and he enlisted people like Richard Swift, Murray Presley and Judith Harder. I was asked to join the board right at the beginning in 1995 and served for five years. I was the Fund Development Chairman for those five years,” Graham recalls.

“We started out with zero money but we had the help and advice of the Vancouver Foundation, which is the biggest community foundation in Canada, and we had just over a million when I left the board.”

“The whole thing was a volunteer effort those first five years,” Graham adds. “We didn’t spend one cent on administration.” Currently, the Foundation hires one part-time staff person, but otherwise is scrupulous about keeping its administrative costs low.

As well as giving copiously of his time, Graham and his wife, Valerie, have donated money regularly over the years. “There are two things I like about giving money to the CVCF,” he says. “The first is that you know the money will keep giving forever. The second is that the interest from the funds goes to charitable and worthy groups in the Comox Valley, rather than off in Vancouver or somewhere else.”

There are many different ways people can contribute to the CVCF, says Graham.

“When I joined we had no money at all. My wife and I made a commitment to give $5,000 before I left the board. We managed that and have been giving ever since. We donate six to eight times a year, mostly through In Memoriam gifts for significant people in our lives who have passed away. It’s so easy to do—you just phone the office and give them your information. It takes just a few minutes. They send a letter to the families of the person who’s passed away, and this has the added benefit of spreading the word about the foundation,” says Graham.

While the donors clearly get a great deal out of their relationship with the CVCF, obviously it is the recipient organizations, and the people they serve, who benefit the most.

“We are very, very, very grateful to the Comox Valley Community Foundation,” says Anne Davis, Program Coordinator at the Comox Valley Transition Society, which this year received $5,000 to renovate the laundry room at Lilli House, their home for women and children who are escaping abusive relationships.

“Try to imagine the state of our laundry room,” Davis says with a laugh, and explains: “We’ve been in operation for 18 years, which means somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 women and children have come through. The laundry room had never been renovated before. It had been poorly laid out to begin with and was in horrible condition. Now it is beautiful, and efficient.

“The CVCF has been great to work with,” she adds. “They are very community-minded and very concerned to be helpful in a practical way.

“And for women who stay at Lilli House, who are in really, really difficult circumstances, this kind of donation sends a powerful message that the community cares about them.”

Davis says the CVCF is much more accessible than most other types of foundations. “These are people we rub shoulders with on a daily basis, who really know our community. With other types of grant applications, we have to spend lots and lots of time explaining and describing where we live—not so with the CVCF.”

The CVCF wants to hear from as wide a variety of charitable organizations as possible. They provide support to grant-seekers by offering an annual granting seminar, which takes potential applicants through the whole application process, making sure they understand what is required and what is and isn’t eligible for funding.

CVCF grants range from $1,000 to $20,000 and can only be given to groups who are a registered charity. The Foundation does not cover regular operating expenses such as staffing, and will not cover 100 per cent of a project’s costs. Beyond that there are few limitations.

In addition to the Transition Society, grant recipients for 2011 included L’Arche Comox Valley, the Cumberland Community Forest Society, the Tsolum River Restoration Society, Comox Valley Project Watershed, the Black Creek Community Association, the Cumberland & District Historical Society, and the Sid Williams Theatre Society Endowment Fund.

In early January, grant recipients and Foundation donors will be guests at a special event called the Grant Tea.

“This annual event is the highlight of our year and what we are all about,” says Kathy Penner, vice chair of the Distribution Committee for CVCF. “We have the pleasure of formally handing cheques to these worthy organizations, and donors learn first-hand about the wide variety of projects that their contributions go toward.”

A total of 10 charities will receive funding for the coming year for a wide range of projects, ranging from equipment for therapeutic riding to archival storage containers for a museum.

The level of competition for funding is variable year by year, says Lewis, depending both on the level of community need and the amount of funds available to give. “Some years we are flush and in others we don’t have enough to fund everyone we’d like to,” she says.

When groups are awarded a grant, they are matched with a board member who helps steward the grant, and who reports back to the other board members.

This is one of the best parts of being a board member, says Lewis. “The biggest reward of all this is seeing things happen. The Comox Valley is my community, and to be able to provide sustained support is a really, really big deal.

“We all tend to live in our own little bubbles, but there are groups that truly are needy and deserving, and when you find them it’s nice to have a foundation with a perpetual income stream to support them.”

There are lots of ways to support the CVCF, says Lewis. “You can just go to the website and hit the “Make a Donation” button. It’s that easy. Or you can make a bequest through your will so that a gift comes out of your estate. You can make a gift of cash, stocks, bonds, real estate, or other assets,” she says.

As a chartered accountant, Lewis is eager to explain that charitable giving can have significant tax benefits. “Under Canadian tax law, for every dollar you give over $200 annually, you get a 43 per cent tax credit. So it costs just 57 cents to donate a dollar. It’s a pretty good bang for your buck. There are also huge tax benefits for gifts of securities, especially those with gains. It’s a real windfall from a tax perspective, for you or your estate.”

While Lewis is of course eager to solicit more donations to CVCF’s endowment fund, she says the foundation is careful not to compete with other local non-profit groups for local funds.

“Our mandate is to support other local charities, not compete with them. We are all contributing to the fabric of a vibrant, healthy Comox Valley. The CVCF doesn’t do our own projects. Instead we get to be really diverse and to give support in small doses, where it can make an immediate, practical difference,” she says.

She and Harder are both deeply appreciative of the work done by the Comox Valley’s many charitable organizations.

“The cool thing about the Comox Valley is that we have a large number of people who are involved in volunteer and charitable work, with an incredibly wide range—whether it’s mountain sports, homelessness, head injuries, children, or so many other issues… it’s so diverse,” says Lewis. “This is a community of giving.” The Comox Valley Community Foundation is clearly an integral part of that.

For more information about the Comox Valley Community Foundation, visit their website at:
www.cvcfoundation.org

It’s an amazing cornucopia, rx
but a bit overwhelming: there are approximately 3, stomach
000 grant-making foundations in Canada, life
according to the non-profit agency Imagine Canada, which offers an online database of these organizations.

That number, and the database, are impressive, but also can be intimidating to a grassroots initiative needing funds for a local cause, or to a potential donor who wants to be sure their money is well-spent and kept within their own community.

Luckily for the people of the Comox Valley, one name on the database is the Comox Valley Community Foundation (CVCF). The CVCF is run by locals for locals, giving both donors and recipients a personal, direct connection to the charitable process.

Since it was founded in 1996, the CVCF has given more than $1 million to well over 100 local charitable projects, and to educational institutions through student bursaries. In 2011, it gave away $32,000 to eight projects. The range of the recipients reflects the Comox Valley’s diversity, and the CVCF’s five focus areas: arts and culture, environment, seniors, health and welfare, and education and youth.

The CVCF has supported environmental groups, sports teams, theatres, museums, arts groups, search and rescue, salmon hatcheries, and community forests; it has helped build docks, therapeutic gardens, therapeutic riding facilities, playgrounds, fitness centres, trails, resource centres and a skate park. It addresses issues from homelessness to hunger, to domestic violence, and more.

“It’s nice to be able to support such a tremendous number and diversity of groups,” says Lorne Harder, CVCF president. Harder, an insurance broker, was invited to join the board when his sister, who’d been involved since the Foundation’s inception, stepped off. He says he didn’t hesitate to say yes.

“I like to be involved in community and this is my charity of choice. It’s local and very efficient,” says Harder.
This diversity is one of the hallmarks of a community foundation—a special type of grant-making organization that collects and distributes funds within a defined region.

The CVCF is one of 46 community foundations in British Columbia; there are more than 170 in Canada, which together hold more than $2.4 billion in shared assets.

Other than the limited geographical focus, the other defining characteristic of community foundations is their total reliance on an endowment fund. This means that all donations are pooled in a fund that is never spent, but instead invested. The annual earnings are distributed as grants, while the principal stays untouched, and grows continuously as more donations come in.

“The nice thing about this is that people making donations know it is a forever gift—there will always be a community foundation, and their money will always be doing good in the Comox Valley,” says Wendy Lewis, CVCF board member and treasurer. Lewis is a chartered accountant, and like Harder, she stepped up to fill a gap on the Board when her partner, Ben Vanderhorst, stepped down.

When people give money to a community foundation, Lewis explains, they often have the whole community interest at heart and don’t want to direct their support toward one specific issue.

Donors are welcome to target the funds they give to general issues, such as “animal welfare” or “children,” but not to get more specific than that, and most donations go into the general discretionary fund.

“The way this works means you can touch a lot of good things with one donation,” says Lewis.

“Also,” adds Harder, “Because we are broad in focus we can adjust to changing needs in the community.”

The endowment fund ensures the CVCF’s longevity. As the economy waxes and wanes and markets rise and fall, the CVCF will have more or less money to disburse, but their ongoing existence is secured. Donors need to trust that the 17-member board to have an accurate and in-depth understanding of community needs and to respond accordingly, and to steward their money wisely.

“This is not just an oversight board; it’s a very hands-on active board,” says Harder. “Our guidelines specify that we have to have a very diverse board. The first priority is to bring the skill sets needed to run the foundation. Also, we need people who are connected enough to the community, and as broad a representation of the Comox Valley as possible.”

Lewis continues: “So we look for a mix of people from accounting, the school district, hospital and other sectors.”

Because there is so much work involved, the CVCF board attracts people who are truly passionate about the Foundation’s work. For instance, long-term CVCF supporter Richard Graham has contributed both as a volunteer and a donor. Graham is a retired retail jeweler (from Graham’s Jewellers, now run by Graham’s son) who got involved when the CVCF was founded.

“The Foundation was Stan Hagen’s idea and he enlisted people like Richard Swift, Murray Presley and Judith Harder. I was asked to join the board right at the beginning in 1995 and served for five years. I was the Fund Development Chairman for those five years,” Graham recalls.

“We started out with zero money but we had the help and advice of the Vancouver Foundation, which is the biggest community foundation in Canada, and we had just over a million when I left the board.”

“The whole thing was a volunteer effort those first five years,” Graham adds. “We didn’t spend one cent on administration.” Currently, the Foundation hires one part-time staff person, but otherwise is scrupulous about keeping its administrative costs low.

As well as giving copiously of his time, Graham and his wife, Valerie, have donated money regularly over the years. “There are two things I like about giving money to the CVCF,” he says. “The first is that you know the money will keep giving forever. The second is that the interest from the funds goes to charitable and worthy groups in the Comox Valley, rather than off in Vancouver or somewhere else.”

There are many different ways people can contribute to the CVCF, says Graham.

“When I joined we had no money at all. My wife and I made a commitment to give $5,000 before I left the board. We managed that and have been giving ever since. We donate six to eight times a year, mostly through In Memoriam gifts for significant people in our lives who have passed away. It’s so easy to do—you just phone the office and give them your information. It takes just a few minutes. They send a letter to the families of the person who’s passed away, and this has the added benefit of spreading the word about the foundation,” says Graham.

While the donors clearly get a great deal out of their relationship with the CVCF, obviously it is the recipient organizations, and the people they serve, who benefit the most.

“We are very, very, very grateful to the Comox Valley Community Foundation,” says Anne Davis, Program Coordinator at the Comox Valley Transition Society, which this year received $5,000 to renovate the laundry room at Lilli House, their home for women and children who are escaping abusive relationships.

“Try to imagine the state of our laundry room,” Davis says with a laugh, and explains: “We’ve been in operation for 18 years, which means somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 women and children have come through. The laundry room had never been renovated before. It had been poorly laid out to begin with and was in horrible condition. Now it is beautiful, and efficient.

“The CVCF has been great to work with,” she adds. “They are very community-minded and very concerned to be helpful in a practical way.

“And for women who stay at Lilli House, who are in really, really difficult circumstances, this kind of donation sends a powerful message that the community cares about them.”

Davis says the CVCF is much more accessible than most other types of foundations. “These are people we rub shoulders with on a daily basis, who really know our community. With other types of grant applications, we have to spend lots and lots of time explaining and describing where we live—not so with the CVCF.”

The CVCF wants to hear from as wide a variety of charitable organizations as possible. They provide support to grant-seekers by offering an annual granting seminar, which takes potential applicants through the whole application process, making sure they understand what is required and what is and isn’t eligible for funding.

CVCF grants range from $1,000 to $20,000 and can only be given to groups who are a registered charity. The Foundation does not cover regular operating expenses such as staffing, and will not cover 100 per cent of a project’s costs. Beyond that there are few limitations.

In addition to the Transition Society, grant recipients for 2011 included L’Arche Comox Valley, the Cumberland Community Forest Society, the Tsolum River Restoration Society, Comox Valley Project Watershed, the Black Creek Community Association, the Cumberland & District Historical Society, and the Sid Williams Theatre Society Endowment Fund.

In early January, grant recipients and Foundation donors will be guests at a special event called the Grant Tea.

“This annual event is the highlight of our year and what we are all about,” says Kathy Penner, vice chair of the Distribution Committee for CVCF. “We have the pleasure of formally handing cheques to these worthy organizations, and donors learn first-hand about the wide variety of projects that their contributions go toward.”

A total of 10 charities will receive funding for the coming year for a wide range of projects, ranging from equipment for therapeutic riding to archival storage containers for a museum.

The level of competition for funding is variable year by year, says Lewis, depending both on the level of community need and the amount of funds available to give. “Some years we are flush and in others we don’t have enough to fund everyone we’d like to,” she says.

When groups are awarded a grant, they are matched with a board member who helps steward the grant, and who reports back to the other board members.

This is one of the best parts of being a board member, says Lewis. “The biggest reward of all this is seeing things happen. The Comox Valley is my community, and to be able to provide sustained support is a really, really big deal.

“We all tend to live in our own little bubbles, but there are groups that truly are needy and deserving, and when you find them it’s nice to have a foundation with a perpetual income stream to support them.”

There are lots of ways to support the CVCF, says Lewis. “You can just go to the website and hit the “Make a Donation” button. It’s that easy. Or you can make a bequest through your will so that a gift comes out of your estate. You can make a gift of cash, stocks, bonds, real estate, or other assets,” she says.

As a chartered accountant, Lewis is eager to explain that charitable giving can have significant tax benefits. “Under Canadian tax law, for every dollar you give over $200 annually, you get a 43 per cent tax credit. So it costs just 57 cents to donate a dollar. It’s a pretty good bang for your buck. There are also huge tax benefits for gifts of securities, especially those with gains. It’s a real windfall from a tax perspective, for you or your estate.”

While Lewis is of course eager to solicit more donations to CVCF’s endowment fund, she says the foundation is careful not to compete with other local non-profit groups for local funds.

“Our mandate is to support other local charities, not compete with them. We are all contributing to the fabric of a vibrant, healthy Comox Valley. The CVCF doesn’t do our own projects. Instead we get to be really diverse and to give support in small doses, where it can make an immediate, practical difference,” she says.

She and Harder are both deeply appreciative of the work done by the Comox Valley’s many charitable organizations.

“The cool thing about the Comox Valley is that we have a large number of people who are involved in volunteer and charitable work, with an incredibly wide range—whether it’s mountain sports, homelessness, head injuries, children, or so many other issues… it’s so diverse,” says Lewis. “This is a community of giving.” The Comox Valley Community Foundation is clearly an integral part of that.

For more information about the Comox Valley Community Foundation, visit their website at:
www.cvcfoundation.org

As the storms roll through day after day, see
the portents are all in place for another wild winter on Vancouver Island. The snow is piling up in the mountains and more snowfall records are likely to be set as La Nina returns again this year. For Cumberland based Island Alpine Guides (IAG) that means they are likely to be busier than ever.

IAG offers extensive courses and guided trips to make exploring the Island “Alps” enjoyable and safe. Year round they offer an array of climbing and hiking packages. In winter, they specialize in avalanche training and back country touring.

Jan Neuspiel, IAG’s managing director, has 25 years guiding experience. Born and raised in Ottawa, the genial 50-year-old says that skiing was a family affair—“almost a religion.” He left Ottawa “very soon after first year university to become a ski bum, which I’m proud to say, I’m still doing today on some level.”

Neuspiel’s first stop was to explore the Rockies, where he soon became involved in back country skiing and mountain climbing. His introduction to guiding was in the river rafting business. “I discovered that I really loved that way of life, that job—the whole business of taking people into beautiful wild places and sharing that with them and looking after them,” Neuspiel says. “All of that stuff really appealed to me so then it morphed pretty quickly into guiding climbing and ultimately skiing as well.”

After stopping long enough to get a diploma in outdoor recreation from North Vancouver’s Capilano College, Neuspiel headed to the Himalayas in north western India on a skiing expedition, which would be the start of 25 years of Himalayan adventures. “That trip kind of fell apart but it got me over there and then I made my way across to Nepal and that is where I got my first job,” Neuspiel says.

“A couple of years later, I made my way back to northern India with my skis and finally realized the dream of skiing in the Himalayas there. I did some of my skiing there with a friend I had made in Nepal, an Australian, who was starting to toy with the idea of starting a helicopter skiing operation in that part of the Himalayas. Long story short, a few years later I did end up hooking up with him and working at that operation. And, before I knew it, I was running the operation and had been there for 11 years!”

Neuspiel laughs, noting how lucky he has been throughout his work life. But hard work no doubt enters into the mix as well. Himachal Helicopter Skiing is based in Manali, India, a city of 30,000 people located at 6,398 feet. “We grew it from a business that, when I joined, ran about three weeks of heli-skiing, to a business that owned three helicopters and was operating 12 weeks a winter, 250 clients in a winter. So yeah, we grew it into quite a business.”

While in Nepal Neuspiel met and married his wife Amanda, originally from England. Amanda works as a medical herbalist and thus when they decided to leave Nepal their destination had to be temperate for her work and mountainous for his. “The main contenders that fit that description are New Zealand and the west coast of BC,” Neuspiel says. “Neither of us is from New Zealand so we thought we’d consider the West Coast. We came to visit a friend in the Comox Valley and liked it. At first we really dropped our bags here but over time we settled in.”

Neuspiel continued to spend about four months out of the year in India, while gradually building his knowledge of Vancouver Island’s mountains and back country. When they adopted their son Vijay five years ago it was time to think about making a more permanent home here. That was when Neuspiel and another Cumberland resident, Cliff Umpleby, started Island Alpine Guides.

In his web blog Neuspiel sums up how IAG is doing: “Here we are entering our fifth year thinking, ‘The timing was about right.’ We’ve grown considerably every year since we started and are looking strong into the future as Vancouver Island’s premiere mountain school and guide service. Looking into the future we certainly intend to keep meeting the needs of our fellow islanders right here in the island Alps.”

IAG’s most popular winter course is the Avalanche Skills Training One (AST 1), followed closely by the Intro to Winter Travel. The AST 1 is offered at both Mount Washington and Mt. Cain. IAG is licensed by the Canadian Avalanche Centre to provide the two-day courses composed of about six hours of classroom and 12 hours of field instruction. In the classroom, participants learn about avalanche terrain, mountain snowpack, the nature and formation of avalanches, assessing avalanche danger, avalanche transceivers, safety measures and self rescue. In the field students learn terrain recognition, route finding, safe travel, stability evaluation, hazard recognition and small party self rescue. IAG also offers a four day long Avalanche Skills Training 2 course.

For the two day long Intro to Winter Travel the staff guide participants through gear selection and preparation while they manage the logistics of transportation, tenting and cooking. Neuspiel describes a typical outing from the arrival at the departure spot: “We would do final checks through gear, pack up our packs, and have a briefing before we head off up the mountain. We would ski our way to a location where we intend to camp for the night. In the process there is a lot of learning that goes on. Our instructors realize that the best way to teach a lot of outdoor pursuits is through using teachable moments to allow people to learn the stuff they’ve come there to learn.

“We get to a spot, set up a camp, and if the timing is right, probably go out for a little cruise around. If it is a trip where people are on skis, go for some ski runs; if it is a snowshoe trip, go for a wander around on snowshoes. If a person is on a split board, we’re going snowboarding, whatever it is. Camping out in the winter is full of lessons of its own and so we would help people through all of that and teach them how to be comfortable and enjoy sleeping out in the snow. The second day would involve doing a whole bunch more ski runs or whatever and ultimately heading out to finish the trip.”

Not sure if back country touring is for you? “Back country skiing is really suitable for anyone who skis and who is interested in being outdoors, particularly in the wilderness,” says Neuspiel. “It is particularly well suited to those who like powder snow. In terms of criteria the person needs to be a strong intermediate level skier and reasonably fit. Other than desire and a sense of adventure, that is about it.”

Once you’ve taken the courses, Island Alpine Guides has a multitude of tours to satisfy all tastes and abilities. There are Mount Washington and Mt. Cain back country tours, weekend ski tours to Mount Myra, Mount Adrian, or Mount Tom Taylor, heli-accessed touring at Alexandra Peak, Mount Adrian, or Mount Matchlee, as well as a seven-day Mount Washington to Comox Glacier traverse to name just a few of the winter options.

Neuspiel laughs when asked about the snow and the quality of local skiing. “Everyone asks that. Surely it is all Island cement, right? The best skiing is anywhere on the right day. It’s all about being in the right place at the right time. I’ve skied snow as good as anywhere on Vancouver Island. I’ve skied cold smoke powder, over the shoulders, on the back of Mount Washington. It is a matter of being in the right place at the right time and that is a big part of what we do as guides. We make sure we get people to the right spot at the right time to get the best snow they possibly can.”

Island Alpine Guides staff is almost all based in the Comox Valley and are members of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. “They are an interesting group of people who share my passion for the mountains and for being in the mountains with people,” Neuspiel says. “They come with a variety of different experiences—from a mountain guide from France that has joined us here in the last couple of years and brings his own French flavor to things, which is fantastic, to a woman who has a really strong background with Outward Bound as an instructor and so comes with a really strong set of teaching skills, to a hiking guide who has been with us for a little while now who has just got keen with a capital K written all over him with everything that he does.”

Neuspiel also focuses his energy beyond the clients of IAG to assist all back country enthusiasts through two reporting services: the Vancouver Island Mountain Conditions Report and the Vancouver Island Avalanche Bulletin. The Mountain Conditions Report was initiated by IAG as a way to share information among people travelling in the backcountry.

He describes what information is provided: “What’s the access like on these logging roads now, what condition is that trail in, are the crevasses on that glacier opened up more, did you see avalanche activity, was there a big rock slide somewhere? Whatever it is that helps people planning their trip.” A new blog has been developed for this report to combat previous problems with spam. Information should be sent to [email protected].

The non-profit Vancouver Island Avalanche Centre Society publishes an avalanche bulletin three times a week throughout the winter. The current bulletin advises that the many storms to pass over Vancouver Island in the last week of November have created high snow packs with a lot of instability. Jan is the lead forecaster for the Centre and he wants to encourage everyone to send him any information they have about snow conditions on the Island. Email him at [email protected]. The information will make the Bulletin better and the interaction with the forecasters will also provide people with an opportunity to hone their skills in assessing snow pack.

Vancouver Island may not be the first place that comes to your mind when you think of mountain adventures but Neuspiel is working on changing that. The motto for Island Alpine Guides is “think globally, adventure locally.”

“There’s no shortage of challenges and real mountain topography here,” Neuspiel says. “The other point is the Island mountains have a unique beauty that is all their own. I have to say that over the years it has really grown on me to the point where, in my aged state, if I just wander around in these mountains for the rest of my career I’ll be more than happy.”

Avalanche Safety Tips

Carry avalanche rescue gear—probe, beacon/transceiver, shovel, etc.—at all times when travelling in the winter backcountry.

Avalanches can be associated with sunshine and daily warming. Consider travelling early while everything is frozen, or at night. The Canadian Avalanche Centre website (www.avalanche.ca) lists conditions that may lead to avalanches.

Watch for cracks across the snow surface and listen for the tell-tale “whump” noise associated with a slope collapse.

In avalanche country, always travel in a group and ensure everyone stays within sight of one another. If caught in an avalanche, use a swimming motion to try and stay at the surface. If possible, move to the side of the avalanche. If you’re not at the surface when the slide stops, quickly punch the snow to create an air pocket with one arm and push your other arm toward the surface to help rescuers locate you.

www.islandalpineguides.com
www.islandavalanchebulletin.com