“The biggest stumbling block or the biggest barrier from the non-profit worlds, again, is the younger generation isn’t giving at the same level as the older generation. They’re giving in different ways. But if you look at the numbers, it’s nowhere close. Some experts are saying that within 10 years the charitable world is gonna be in trouble because the numbers don’t justify the means.

I’m a big believer in there are three ways that you can make it in the world from a business standpoint. You can either wait for business to come to you, you can buy it so you can take up big billboard ads and come up with incredible campaigns. And you can pay for analytics for this video to able to go out and share with the world, and hope that there’s a return on the investment.

I know that if I pay $100 for this video to go out and target specific areas, I’ll get at least one donation of $100 back for Summit. I don’t know for sure but I say that with enough confidence. Or you can go out and you can get it. You can go out and you can make the connections with the people who you know you’re going to need to have as your supporters. You can educate them.

I’m a big believer that if you’re not giving to Summit School, I hope that you’re going to be giving to somewhere else, to another worthy cause. For me, there’s always a level of collaboration that we can have. And according to stats, here in Montreal, close to 83% of Montrealers identify as having given a donation in some capacity.

Just because they identify with giving a donation, a lot of people in the industry will say that’s a conflict in terms of what people’s taxes show, because not everyone declares that they received a donation receipt for giving their donation. And they look at it with a glass half full perspective.

I see it as the opposite. I see it as it means that more and more people are identifying giving donations as possibly non-monetary gifts. They’re giving of their time. They’re giving off their connections. They’re giving of their resources and they associate that with giving a donation. Or people are getting their donation receipts and they’re not even paying attention to them because that’s not why they’re giving.

They’re giving money to a charity because they believe wholeheartedly in that charity. And again, the optimist in me says, I think that they’re giving because they genuinely want to give. I don’t want anything. You keep it all. I don’t need a tax break, I don’t need this. I don’t need anything like that. Whether that’s true or not, that might be the ignorance in me to a certain level. But again, positivity hopefully prevails.”