Showroom at Vista Place
After hearing about a European idea to connect business with charities, a local businessman is forging ahead with his own version. A brand-new luxury penthouse property for sale in the trendy Lonsdale area of North Vancouver has already been competitively priced, and the seller will donate $20,000 to any charity registered in Canada, from the sale at list price of C$1.099m.
"This way", he said, "I can start a program where buyers can choose to purchase large ticket items, based on the perceived social usefulness of the transaction, at no extra cost to them.”
Currently, charities are having a hard time canvassing for funds, and those companies who are offering "a portion of each sale to charity" are losing a lot of their steam because of the time and cost of the administration and distribution of the funds, and the tiny amounts of money that have to be counted and then aggregated for distribution. Also, the actual calculable benefit or amount going to charity from companies who state “ a portion of sales go to (a specific) charity", is vague or unknown .
This way, socially-conscious buyers who are buying items such as properties, cars, businesses and so on, can choose a seller who takes part in this program, and for no extra cost generate large lump sums for the charity of their choice, amounts that will actually make an impact, AND get the tax-deductible receipt as well.
The sellers will have the choice of going on a special “Honour roll” on the site, and get mentioned in press releases, if they would like . Or, the buyer can choose to trade this honour with the seller, for the tax receipt. In addition, both parties get the benefit of having given a large sum to the needy.
There are many charities currently getting priority over others for donations, some may have been around for a longer time, have higher media profiles, and so forth.
However, this way not only is a lot more money generated for charities, but a greater variety of charities will benefit from it, because there are such a wide variety of buyers, with a varied array of charitable concerns and interests.
“Let’s make this the first of many”, the businessman said, here is the first property on the “Caring Star” program below, currently on sale for just under $1.1m. Upon sale at list price, Twenty thousand dollars (CAD) will be donated to the buyer's choice of registered charity ( minus a small legal fee related to disbursement)
http://www.milanstefancik.com/
"I'd love to see a situation where buyers select their purchases with the social benefit of the sale as one of the main criteria", he said.
A website is currently being constructed for this enterprise, and the originator of the idea hopes to have this up and running by early 2010.
How it works is simple, the buyer purchases let's say,… a residential property, at the normal price, having selected the purchase because of the special logo on the ad, (the working title of the program is "Caring Star"), the donation becomes a subject of the sale and the only cost taken from the donation is a small legal fee to ensure disbursement to and receipt of the funds to the registered charity .
“If even just a small percentage of sellers join me in this program, and the average donation is $10,000 to 30,000 we could see even millions of dollars being given to Canadian registered charities (which may be operating in other parts of the world too), with barely any administration or distribution cost, and give them quicker access to funds.”
The site will have an area where interested charities can be listed and buyers can then either choose from this list, or add their own registered charity for the donation. The added benefit of the tax-receipt will attract even the most business-minded buyers..
For more info about “Caring Star", media enquiries, or this property, contact Adam, email : caringstarBC@
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
