AFP Greater Toronto Chapter Philanthropy Awards Luncheon

Recipients of the 2011 AFP Greater Toronto Chapter Philanthropy Awards 

Outstanding Philanthropists: The Clark Family

Edmund Clark and family are described as quietly effective philanthropists. Unafraid of risk, their financial support has historically funded innovative service approaches that fall outside the existing norm, but have become critically important to the alleviation of difficult social problems. They are the primary benefactors behind Woodgreen Community Services’ program Homeward Bound, a 4-year job readiness program for under-housed or homeless single mothers, as well as the First Step to Home program that provides long term stable housing for senior men with a history of homelessness, mental illness and substance abuse. Other recipients of the Clark’s major gifts include Toronto General and Western Hospital Foundation (Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery Initiative and Diabetes Research), Habitat for Humanity and the United Way of Greater Toronto, where Ed served as chair of the most successful United Way Campaign in North America, raising $113.2 million in 2010. In addition to contributing significant personal donations, the Clark Family is credited with helping raise more than $200 million for Toronto charities. 

Outstanding Volunteers: Mr. and Mrs. Jamie and Patsy Anderson

Jamie and Patsy Anderson are visionary community leaders who have set new benchmarks for fundraising and voluntarism in the fields of mental and pediatric health in Canada. In 1999, when few business leaders were willing to step up for mental illness, Jamie and Patsy readily joined the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Foundation Centered on Hope Campaign which met and exceeded its goal, raising $11.7 million. Jamie continued his work with CAMH, chairing the Hospital’s Board of Trustees and co-chairing its successful $100 million Transforming Lives Campaign since 2003. Patsy joined the Board of Directors at Sick Kids Foundation, and as its chair led the successful $500 million Believe Campaign, Canada’s largest fundraising campaign in the health sector. Jamie and Patsy devote extraordinary amounts of time and energy to important charities along with personal seven-figure donations and together, they have inspired others to give in excess of $600 million. Patsy is Chair of The Aldeburgh Connection and a Past Chair of Roy Thomson Hall and Massey Hall. Jamie is a Past Chair of Outward Bound Canada and Outward Bound International and is a long time member of the Major Gifts Cabinet of the United Way Toronto.

Outstanding Corporation: Bell Canada

Canada’s largest communications company, Bell last year launched Bell Let’s Talk, a five-year, $50-million initiative dedicated to the promotion and support of mental health across Canada. It’s the largest-ever corporate commitment to mental health in Canada. The program is built on four key pillars: anti-stigma, community care and access, research and workplace health. Through unprecedented funding and the creative use of technology, Bell is engaging the Canadian public, other corporations and its 60,000 team members in an important conversation to combat the stigma around mental illness and enhance mental health in our homes, workplaces and communities. For more information, please visit bell.ca/letstalk.

Outstanding Foundation: The Michael Young Family Foundation

The Michael Young Family Foundation understands the power of philanthropy to transform innovative ideas into positive social change. Michael Young, its namesake, was a truly special being who grew up with and conquered severe learning disabilities. He came down with a fatal cancer. The Foundation was set up in 2001 to fund cancer research. Mike died in 2002. After his death, his brother David transformed the foundation into one that provides venture philanthropy to unique charitable enterprises in Toronto. During the last decade, $17 million of the foundation’s money has funded, and prompted extra government support for important urban projects such as the transformation of the historic Don Valley Brickworks (home of the Evergreen Foundation), the creation of the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in the Distillery District (home of the Soulpepper Theatre Company) and in future, the repurposing of Artscape’s Shaw Street School Centre. 

Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy (Age 5-17): Mark Mannarn

Mark Mannarn will tell you that he loves hockey and hates cancer. He lost a grandmother to pancreatic cancer and continues to watch his own mother battle breast cancer. This past year, he combined these extreme emotions to create and launch Minor Hockey Fights Cancer - Feel Like a Pro Day, a skill building event for minor hockey players in Ontario. With the support of his family and friend, Paul Coffey, a former Edmonton Oiler and Hockey Hall of Fame Inductee, Mark set out to raise $100,000. The enthusiastic participation of other minor hockey players, combined with the in-kind sponsorship of a number of major Canadian corporations helped Mark shatter his initial goal and raise $200,000 in its first year. Mark personally raised $100,000 of that sum, proving to himself and other young Canadians that kids really can transform their personal passions into action. For more information, visit: www.minorhockeyfightscancer.ca. 

Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy (Age 18-23): Robert Hampson

Shortly after his 4^th birthday, Robert Hampson was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Surgery left him blind, but did not impair his zest for life or his desire to help others. At the age of 8, he began collecting soda pop pull tabs with a goal to sell them to metal recyclers, and purchase wheelchairs for other disabled children with the proceeds. Determined to succeed, Robert recruited partners from coast to coast and by 2005, had amassed enough tabs to purchase a wheelchair for Ricardo, age 5. The Robert Hampson Tabs for Kids has since purchased four wheelchairs, a lift for a wheelchair accessible van, a bathroom set-up and an adapted tricycle for children with disabilities. Now a young adult, Robert has grown into an inspirational advocate for the disabled and along with his family, devotes 300 hours a year to overseeing the program. For more information, visit: www.poptabsforwheelchairs.ca 

Outstanding Fundraising Professional: David Palmer

Known for his strategic, principled, and inclusive approach, David Palmer has served with highly effective and talented advancement teams that have helped redefine the fundraising potential for several charitable sectors, including professional faculty campaigns, cultural institutions, and University-wide campaigns. He is a talented development professional with a perspective that is expansive and global, inclusive of diverse communities, and driven to turn bold visions into reality. Since September 2007, he has served as Vice-President, Advancement for the University of Toronto, with a mandate to build institutional capacity and engage the University’s 500,000 graduates in 174 countries. From 1999 to 2007, he was President and Executive Director of the ROM Foundation (now known as the Royal Ontario Museum Board of Governors) where he spearheaded the Renaissance ROM campaign – a transformational campaign that re-defined the Museum’s financial resource base, its public brand, and its position as a major international cultural destination. Prior to the ROM, David led a ground-breaking campaign for the University of Western Ontario’s School of Business Administration that resulted in its being renamed the Richard Ivey School of Business, ushering in a new era in professional-faculty fundraising in Canada. 

Small Organization for Excellence in Fundraising: West Parry Sound Health Centre Foundation

Parry Sound, located on Georgian Bay in northern Ontario, is home to 20,000 year-round residents and the West Parry Sound Health Centre Foundation.  Coming off a capital campaign exhausted the Foundation’s coffers so in 2008 the Foundation developed a 3-year 48-step operational plan to revitalize the organization. In 2010, the Foundation surpassed its revenue goals and in 2011 will transfer almost $1 million to the hospital for equipment purchases. Creativity and the smart use of technology is the hallmark of the organization.  A series of initiatives have reinforced that, including theBraProject, the brainchild of Executive Director, Lynne Atkinson. This campaign which centered on the need to raise $650,000 for a digital mammography machine, invited local women to Support the Girls and craft art bras that were strung on clotheslines throughout the hospital. The project took off eventually taking the art-bras to the CNE and securing a publishing contracting for a book to be released in the Spring of 2012.  For more information, visit: www.wpshcf.com or www.theBraProject.com