Charity Giving Online

This is the season when many of us make donations to charities. We receive many letters from fund-raising campaigns and of course, we reject some and help some. Two ideas that you can do online this year are worth noting.

One relates to the idea of funding/directing a type of gift rather than making just a simple money donation. Plan Canada has ideas on "gifts of hope" www.plancanada.ca/giftsofhope . CHF has "gifts that matter" www.giftsthatmatter.ca (CHF gifts are boosted by CIDA: they add $3 for each $1 from you.) Both allow you to sponsor meaningful gifts. There are likely others using this gift model.

You can make these gifts on someone's behalf instead of stressing out on what to give to that someone "who has everything". These gift ideas could also become suggestions for schools and other organizations who are seeking ideas on how to focus a fund-raising effort.

If you want to help out with a green dimension, the Darfur Stoves project http://darfurstoves.org/ provides a very interesting way to help out women in Africa and elsewhere and cut down on air pollution and CO2 gases.

The other idea is to make your donations on-line through a common portal like doing one-stop giving. That is, a website that knows you and keeps track of your donations and generates your tax receipts in a very simple process. If you see www.CanadaHelps.org on a fundraising form this is the portal for many Canadian charities and maybe, the ones you give to regularly. It's safe and secure with a top notch board of directors.

You get quick response and don't have to fill out cards, write and mail cheques or write down long credit card numbers. Essentially, a one stop online solution for charity giving with no wait income tax receipts.

Another on-line donation service with links to Canada Helps is Charity Intelligence Canada www.charityintelligence.ca . Besides between a donation charity they survey Canadian charities to evaluate their charity effectiveness. Carol Goar, The Star recently wrote a story on this organization and its services .

TTC - From Better Way to No Way

Residents of the Bayview Village and Don Valley Village/ SLHA neighbourhoods who might wish to do a park'n go on the TTC subway from Leslie Station have found that what was once a better way is now a no way.

Last year the TTC decided that it's better and "fairer" to charge for parking. The result was a reduction of 7 AM parking from a full lot to about 2-4 places taken. Now we can see no vehicles. Why?

Apparently the TTC has transferred operations to the Toronto Parking Authority. From Mon to Sun, 5 AM to 2 AM the charge is $2/hour with a $12 limit.

Going downtown with family? Yes, let's drive. It's cheaper. On weekends there's lots of all day parking for $6. Or, if a weekday traveller, and your green consciousness is dominant, after the rush hour you go to the Fairview Mall, Bayview ViIlage Mall or even the CTC lot for no cost parking. If a weekday worker, your direction is away from the empty lot.

So what has the TTC and the city gained at the Leslie Station. Less traffic at the station? Turned off ridership?

A role of the TTC should be to create incentives to increase public transit consumption for a greener city. Someone at the TTC Head Office has not been listening to Mayor Miller and making Toronto a green leader.