The Backyard Philanthropist

Building community family relationships project by project; that IS PincGiving.

Hello,

My name is Beverley and I am the creator of PincGiving.com.  PincGiving facilitates direct giving and strives to encourage philanthropy in your own backyard.

Seven and a half years ago, I began a personal journey when my daughter, Sophia, was born.  Without anticipation, Sophia was born with a life limiting illness due to a large chromosome deletion that has impacted almost every system in her body. Her life has been one fragile moment to the next, her medical care extreme and the fight for mother and daughter to be just that…mother and daughter, a long arduous journey.

Along the way, we have been incredibly fortunate to be on the receiving end of a tremendous amount of philanthropy from a number of community organizations; be it Delta Cottage Hospice, Canuck Place, BC Children’s Hospital and DACD, Centre for Ability.  The list could go on, the people many, and the love abundant.

All of this support would not have occured had it not been for philanthropy, for a grass roots mentality of benevolence.  Each organization has its own group of staff and volunteers who are passionate about its services and create fundraising initiatives to keep the mission statement of those organizations alive.  Each organization provides key support for members in the community, facilitating key services for families like mine, children like Sophia.

I soon began to realize that a lot of under valued charities, not for profits, were struggling with their every day needs due to lack of funding.  Primarily due to lack of resources, people and financial, for fundraising initiatives, grant prospecting, fund management, and technology.  After doing a tremendous amount of research, I discovered that brick and mortar campaigns could leverage their success by utilizing technology.

Very shortly, a team of myself, Shannon O’Neill and Matt Friesen, from Thirdi Software, began to discuss the development of technology surrounding these needs and the benefits it would create for NGO’s, locally AND globally. Through our development process, we decided to position ourselves as a for profit business operating within the not for profit realm.  This fundamental choice was made to ensure that we would never compete for funding sources with those we wish to empower.

September 22, 2007, www.pincgiving.com launched its first version, allowing peer to peer fundraising pages and online donations in five default currencies.  This led to the development of our innovative Charity Gift Card, and to our first multi currency e-comm shopping cart giving organizations the ability to both sell and buy fair trade products facilitating fundraising initiatives for schools, churches and other not for profit organizations.

The Dali Lama suggests that we are missing three core values in our societies today; a sense of care, a sense of concern and a sense of belonging.  With the creation of PincGiving, we hope to bring together those who care, with those who are concerned…to one place, one consistent portal to give, in order to create that sense of belonging some of our communities lack in order to create the building of community family relationships project by project, dollar by dollar.

Sophia’s name in Greek means ‘wisdom’.  Her name is identified with Athena, who’s strengths are intelligence, a powerful defender in war but also a potent peacemaker. Our logo is the olive branch, one of the international symbols of peace.  You will notice the little pink leaf; that is the wisdom of my daughter, of one of the bravest people I know who every single day defends a disease of unknown origin without crying, without complaining.  All the while, bringing joy, happiness and peace to any one who meets her.

I invite you to be a part of Pinc; live your legacy, leave your legacy. I have…

Beverley