Gifts that keep on giving
This Magazine is run by the Red Maple Foundation, a registered charity. We are not for profit, and if you give us money, we will issue you a tax receipt. While you, of course, get to support a cause you believe in. Close to half of our operating budget comes from loyal readers, in the form of magazine sales and donations. And are we ever grateful for those donations. We wouldn’t be able to publish without them.
People are consistently surprised to learn that This has only three paid positions (editor, publisher and art director). When readers see our office for the first time, they often laugh, “This is it?” I am flattered that we are successful in promoting the illusion of greater resources than what we actually have.
This Magazine relies on an army of volunteers and unpaid interns. Our contributors—writers, section editors, artists and photographers—work for honorariums. We sleep at night knowing that no one is getting rich off the project, and that we are all doing good work.
It’s unlikely we’ll ever get ads from RBC, BMW or any of those other deep-pocketed acronyms, and I don’t think anyone would like it if we did. We hold dear the facts that we are beholden to no one, and that we have the freedom to tell the stories we want, in depth, without fear of repercussions. Except perhaps of a legal nature, but that’s what our pro bono lawyers are here to guard against.
So, This Magazine persists, for more than 40 years a labour of love for all involved.
It may seem navel-gazey to be putting out a charity issue but what it means to give and to receive is something we all think about, and we’ve got a feature package that promises to deepen the debate.
When Lauren McKeon came to me last summer with a proposal to do an exposé of the Special Olympics, all the response I managed was a stammered “Are you sure?” She was. McKeon, who helped coach her developmentally handicapped sister’s soccer team for years, learned first-hand how the Special Olympics can come to discriminate against those who stand to benefit from its programs most.
Over the past decade, NGOs such as Oxfam, Heifer and World Vision have started selling animals as salves for what ails Africa. But is that what the poverty-stricken continent really needs? Claire Ward explores that question.
A different kind of charity, which Canada’s poor and marginalized rely on to subsist, has been set up to fail, writes Daniel Aldana Cohen. If freed of the government-inflicted burden of providing basic services, he argues, Canada’s charities could become models and catalysts for a better world. (But not in that neo-con kind of way.)
Stephanie O’Hanley argues succinctly and persuasively for better working conditions for Canada’s writers. This may seem a contradiction, considering This Magazine pays well below the going rate, but some people volunteer for Oxfam, some administer artist-run collectives and some write for us. Motives for working aren’t always financial, but everyone does have to make a living. And the truth for Canada’s writers is that this basic need is becoming increasingly difficult to meet.
Now it’s—on theme—shameless self-promotion time: This Mag is in the midst of our first-ever online fundraising campaign, the proceeds of which will go to fund a special investigative story. There are many to tell, but we need resources to pay for the time and intensive research these stories take to develop. To be a part of what we do, go online to www.thismagazine.ca and give us all your money. Okay, some of your money. Every bit helps—really.
