Welcoming 2015 with Gratitude, Optimism and a Sense of Urgency

The start of this beautiful New Year gives us all the opportunity to reflect on 2014 with a fresh outlook. What did I achieve? Was it a successful year? What will I do differently this year?  As I reflected on CanadaHelps in 2014 and think forward 2015, two key themes emerged.

Gratitude and Appreciation

I speak for the full CanadaHelps team, when I express our deep appreciation to the thousands of charities that rely on our non-commercial fundraising platform. We are inspired by the charities that we serve, who work tirelessly, passionately, and selflessly to make our cities, country, and world a better place. Our thanks also extends to the hundreds of thousands of Canadians that give generously through, and to, CanadaHelps. Simply put, as a self-funded charity servicing charities, without you our work would not be possible.

Optimism and Sense of Urgency

I leave 2014 with a feeling of accomplishment: together, we had tremendous charitable impact. I enter 2015 with excitement: we have a strong plan, built in collaboration with our charity clients, that will enable us to dramatically grow our impact.

2014: A Year of Big Steps 

We accomplished much in 2014. Here are 3 key achievements made possible through the ongoing support of our charity clients and the Canadians who give using CanadaHelps.

A New CanadaHelps Website for Canadians:

Featuring leading edge, mobile-ready pages and numerous improvements to make it easier to discover, donate and fundraise for any registered Canadian charity.

Continuous Enhancements for Charity Clients:

With new website technology in place, we began introducing new features on a bi-weekly basis. New monthly donation reports, branded emails, and fundraise now buttons are just some of the features our charity clients asked for that we have delivered since site launch.

Imagine Canada Accreditation:

Since our launch in 2000, we’ve worked to earn the trust of Canadian donors and charities. Because of our continued commitment to acting ethically and transparently, CanadaHelps became one of just over 100 charities and non-profit organizations in Canada to receive Imagine Canada’s Standards Program accreditation, showing that we meet or exceed the 73 standards set-out as part of this program.

2015: Expanding our Fundraising Solutions for Charities

We will continuously improve and optimize our new website for Canadian donors.  For charities, we will launch peer-to-peer social fundraising and events management services. Both solutions will offer significant cost-savings over for-profit solutions; a dramatic reduction in time and money currently spent running charitable events through process automation; and provide the branding, customization and reporting features charities need. New dashboards will provide charities access to key donor metrics and integration with major database products that will save charities time. Totally new and in support of our mission to build online fundraising capacity, we will launch our first-ever online course that will enable charities to affordably gain basic and intermediary e-commerce skills.

The role of CanadaHelps is to help create a stronger Canadian charitable sector. We’re always listening closely to the small to medium sized charities we serve and welcoming suggestions from Canadians. We encourage you to share your ideas using the comments form below or contacting us anytime at info@CanadaHelps.org.

Thank you for a great 2014!  On behalf of everyone at CanadaHelps, I wish you a happy and successful year. May the rest of this year bring the causes you’re passionate a wealth of support.

Sincerely,

Marina Glogovac