VINOD RAJASEKARAN:  Let’s begin with your journey, I think this is something that [changemakers] will be really curious about; how did you come to enter the world of social purpose?

DUKE CHANG: I had a pretty typical career in the corporate world, in both financial services and technology … and over the course of my career, I would say in the last decade plus, social goods started intersecting with my career. I’d always had that as part of my personal life — whether it was through charitable giving or through volunteerism — but it started intersecting with career opportunities at various companies, whether that was through formalized volunteer programs in the workplace or through working through charitable organizations within my organizations, or through promoting social good initiatives like neurodiversity in the workplace.

And I started thinking, this is really something that I actually enjoy as part of my work life; how can I make that more a part of it? And then when the opportunity at CanadaHelps came along, it was sort of ideal because it took everything that I had done in the fintech world, and said, okay, now how do you apply that to social good?

VINOD: Canada is one of the most generous countries in the world and there’s lots of data that shows Canadians give fairly regularly, in a variety of different ways. But when you look out to the next five or seven years, what are some of the behavioural changes you think we might see around giving?

DUKE: Let me just touch on a couple points there. First, absolutely, Canada is a very generous country and Canadians are very generous. But what we’ve seen in the data is that it has declined over time. If you look at the tax filing data of the number of Canadians — filing a tax claim for charitable giving — that has been a long 30-year decline. 

It used to be about 30 per cent, 30 years ago, and it is down to about 18 per cent now. So that is one data point. It’s not that, say Canadians aren’t giving in other ways, or Canadians aren’t giving and not claiming it on their taxes, but that is a steady data point that we’ve had over a number of years. And what we’re seeing is because of the economic conditions, especially over the last couple of years, fewer Canadians are able to give, but those who are able to give are giving more.

But going back to your original question, there are going to be some shifts coming, right? We’re on the precipice of a massive generational wealth transfer from the boomers to the millennials that is going to shift some of the available income to a different generation to handle that giving. 

And we have a lot of new Canadians, new people, coming into the country who are bringing in their cultures and their belief systems and their way of thinking about philanthropy and giving. And so, the combination of those things really makes you think about how charities need to engage with Canadians as donors and think about what they need to provide. What we know from the data is that the younger generation of donors is much more keenly focused on impact and measures of impact and seeing results.

VINOD: A lot of folks have said online fundraisers are going to be the thing going forward and that in-person fundraisers will become obsolete. But years have gone by and it hasn’t really been the case, has it? And even post-pandemic, there are invitations for all kinds of in-person fundraisers. But there are still folks who say that digital will be the trend going forward, what are we going to see?

DUKE: Everything took a pause during the pandemic, but we’re seeing a huge surge now in events again and charities running events — and that’s great. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think there is something about being able to engage and personally know your donors. It’s really valuable to be able to have them see the good that you’re doing and talk about that, I think that’s extremely valuable. 

Post-pandemic, people are craving those things. Everybody talks about revenge travel right after the pandemic, people taking these luxury trips because they haven’t been able to go on vacation for so long. And I think there’s a craving for social interaction, since we’ve been locked up for so long, that charitable events just slot into beautifully right now.

Digital is a way to augment what you do as a charity and to increase your fundraising footprint, but it isn’t necessarily a direct replacement for other things that you were doing in the past.