Generosity: The Vision Behind $1.4 Billion in Donations

An educated and empowered donor is a proactive donor. Nonprofits need to reach donors where they are and give them the tools and knowledge they need to nurture our innate generosity. Everyone has something they want to change and something to give them that change.

John Bromley, founder and CEO of Charitable Impact, grew up in a family where charity was a core value. Starting his career in corporate finance at PwC and RBC Capital Markets, John later transitioned to work with leading charity law experts, gaining a deep understanding of the complex charity sector. Recognizing the need for a more accessible and effective approach to philanthropy, he founded Charitable Impact to help people turn their desire to give into meaningful action. The platform has since facilitated over $1.4 billion in donations, empowering individuals to nurture their generosity and create lasting change in the world. John’s vision is rooted in the belief that while the desire to help others is natural, knowing how to make an impact through charitable giving requires support and guidance. Through Charitable Impact, John is making philanthropy more inclusive and impactful for all Canadians. John is a two-time TEDx speaker, a Business in Vancouver Forty Under 40 winner, a soccer coach, and a doting father of two kids.

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou:
Welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. This is Hugh Ballou, Founder and President of SynerVision. It’s the synergy. of our vision with our team. We as leaders build synergy around us, we own the vision. It’s our vision and we must communicate it with people to grow our impact in the world. I have a new friend today, John Bromley from Vancouver, Canada. And he’s that new, I can’t say his name yet. He’s bringing some really good stuff to us today. So John, let’s start by telling people a little bit about your background and Why you’re doing this important work, and let me let me give people a hint our topic today is generosity The vision behind 1.4 million billion. That’s a b in donations Or the future of giving is social we can choose our title, but it’s compelling. So talk about yourself and your topic a little bit

John Bromley:
Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. My name is Sean Bromley. I’m from Canada. This may be the new 51st state that we’re talking about. My interest and focus is charitable giving. Decidedly, where I come at that today is being focused on working with and for the donor. The people who give money away and give them a place to go. to ask their questions, where they can get neutral advice. And what I mean by neutral is, we’re not here to say, hey, well, you should give money to the children’s hospital. You should give money to this charity. We’re here to say, who are you? you know, what are your interests in giving? How do we help you start to generate your giving journey? And it’s about you, it’s your giving your way, just with our support. And so that’s our real focus is working with the donor, giving them a place to carry out their giving journey and get advice on it where they’re not being sold on which charity to give to. So there’s no sort of traditional fundraising in the mix with what we do at Charitable Impact. The tool we provide people is a donor-advised fund, but it’s a web-based donor-advised fund. You can access anywhere with pretty, I think, new school policies in that, like, you know, There’s no donation minimum, for example, right? So everyone’s a philanthropist. If you’ve got $5 to give away, you’re welcome and should be thinking about using a donor advice fund as much as if you have $5 million. And yeah, I love working with and for people, serving them as they think about engaging in and engage in their giving journey.

Hugh Ballou:
So a little bit about John, what’s your history, and what’s brought you to this point that you want to do this work?

John Bromley:
Well, there’s two points there. On the one hand, I was… My dad happens to be one of the pioneers of charity law in Canada. So he has a history as a tax lawyer, but I mean, he’s now retired. So, you know, you go back 40 years, did you ever heard of a charity lawyer? The answer is way closer to no than yes. The United States was out ahead in Canada like you are in all things other than maybe ice hockey. And so, My dad was one of the real pioneers there, so he’s a serious hardcore thought leader in the space of charitable giving, charitable finance, and certainly charitable law. And he just happens to be my dad. So I was raised in a family that valued charitable giving, but professionally, I didn’t get interested in it until sort of my late 20s after going about my career in corporate finance and other things. And I stumbled into conversations with him, lo and behold, because he’s my father, right? And I started getting sucked in with no plan, but I started getting sucked into a lot of the work he was doing, a lot of the thinking he was doing. And here we are 20 years later and I’ve dedicated myself to working in the charitable space, and he’s retired. But I’m not a lawyer.

Hugh Ballou:
And nor do you play one on TV.

John Bromley:
Not yet.

Hugh Ballou:
So you and I were having a little get-acquainted time before we went live with this podcast. We were talking about some of the misperceptions that non-profit leaders have about why people donate. There’s a positive side to it, and I’ve shared with you, that my wife and I can support several charities in this part of our life, which we couldn’t do as younger people raising children. So what do we need to understand about the joy of giving?

John Bromley:
Oh, the thing that’s always talked about, which is critically important, is when we give the impact we have on the receiver. So what impact did my money have? And it’s important to focus there. I think the part that’s not talked about, though, is what’s the impact on me when I participate in giving. And I think it’s really important to recognize that when you give, you get something in return. You, the way you see yourself, the way others see yourself, the way you feel, the way your biology feels, improves. And I think it’s just important without going and saying, hey, well, giving is about selfishness, without going that far or even close to that, just kind of recognizing that humans do things that we enjoy doing and that we get benefit from. I mean, that’s why we lead healthier lives. That’s why we read books about things that interest us, that’s why we spend time with the people that we love and like, and so what is it that you really feel is in it for you about giving? When you give, why you give, and that’s just the part of the conversation that we like to remind people of, so that we’re not overtly and entirely focused just on you know, what happens when my money goes there. And that’s important for another for several reasons. But one of them is that not every charitable donation you make is going to be perfect. Right? Like not every toaster you buy is going to be the best toaster for you. And it’s okay to make mistakes. So you know, if it’s all about GI, if I give money away, and it doesn’t have an impact, I’m out, I’m gonna quit giving. That’s where we need to remind ourselves that, first of all, it’s okay to make mistakes when we give, it’s like everything else in life. Secondly, the more we feel committed to what we’re doing and knowing that it’s good for us, regardless of sometimes the impact that it has, the more we can create a more sustained environment where more people are contributing towards giving, participating in it more regularly. And when that happens, the whole ecosystem of giving becomes healthier.

Hugh Ballou:
Well put, well put. And these are things that we don’t think about as nonprofit leaders from day to day. You mentioned a term, and let me go back and let you explain it to some people who don’t know about a donor-advised fund.

John Bromley:
A donor-advised fund is, first of all, it’s a registered charity under which you can have your account, so your fund. So it’s kind of like having your bank account under a bank. You put your money into that donor advice fund, you receive the tax receipt immediately. That money is now charitable law and has to be spent on charitable purposes. From your donor advice fund, you can then advise, donor advised fund, you then advise what charities you want, and how you want those charitable dollars to be used. So that includes what registered charities you want it to go to. It can potentially include, if you’ve got enough money in there, what type of investments you’d like to see it invested in while you’re thinking about what charities you want to send the money to, etc. And in a place like Charitable Impact, in our donor advice fund, and others do this too, we also allow you to spend money on other people for them to give away. So it can be like, hey Hugh, thanks for having me on my show or your show. Here’s $50 from me as a gift for you to use the way you want. So the donor-advised fund is like a bank account but just for charitable giving, and it’s yours in that it’s the fund that can be used as a tool to help you carry out your entire giving journey. So if today you’re interested in funding stuff related to the relief of poverty, but next week or next year you’re interested in funding a little bit more stuff related to the environment, that’s fine. The same account can help you organize and manage your giving through life. And it’s really important because donors should have tools with support systems that work for them, regardless of what charities they end up choosing. And the Donor Advised Fund is one of the only tools that truly is built for the donor.

Hugh Ballou:
And that’s great. That’s great. It’s similar in both Canada and America, that Donor Advised Fund, right?

John Bromley:
Yeah, I mean, there are some moderate differences in the rules of compliance and law, but the donor advice funds effectively work the same. And actually in every legal jurisdiction. In the same way, a bank account works the same in every legal jurisdiction, the differences aren’t so much the tool, the differences are the rules that are around the tool.

Hugh Ballou:
So you said you work for the donor. So you must have some stories of experiences donors have had and the joy they’ve had in being able to make a difference. You want to share, you don’t have to mention names, but you want to share a story or two with us?

John Bromley:
Well, there’s so many stories. So what I’ll do is tell you the type of story that I like to see, but that doesn’t surprise me at all and relates to why I do the work that I do. So first of all, the core assumption at Charitable Impact is that everyone has something they care about changing in the world. Right. These are beliefs. Everyone has something they care about changing the world. Everyone has something that they can do to contribute towards creating change for what they care about. Right. With their time, their talent, and or their treasure. or their money. The third belief is that when you give, you get something in return for yourself. So that’s the core assumption. And the stories I love about that I hear from donors are the people who go from, well, I’ve always given a little bit of money here or there. but triggered by outside forces coming and asking me for money. Sometimes it’s a friend, sometimes it’s a fundraiser targeting me and saying, hey, do you want to do this with your money? And posts starting to work themselves through their donor-advised fund. sort of taking over more agency and responsibility for what they do with their money. And that, generally speaking, is what is the incremental additive of more joy added into giving. It’s when people take more responsibility and do the things that they choose to do for their reasons that add to the user experience and the joy of being a donor, as opposed to just always doing what someone asks of you.

Hugh Ballou:
There are some misconceptions on both sides of this equation of how we, as non-private leaders, understand the reasons people donate. You have a very large group of people in your database, don’t you? What do you call them, members?

John Bromley:
We call them we can well call them users or we call them we call we call them donors They’re donors to us and then they allocate their money to charity. So we refer to them as donors They are they are donors. They’re all donors They’re all giving money away.

Hugh Ballou:
I just reading you know, it’s 200,000 users that’s donors Yeah, that’s donors. Yeah, man. I did a little bit of reading about you. Yeah, so And you mentioned that there’s 1.4 billion. That’s Canadian dollars, right?

John Bromley:
That’s Canadian dollars, yeah.

Hugh Ballou:
Well, it’s pretty close anyway, isn’t it?

John Bromley:
Why I’m laughing is the Canadian US dollar exchange rate is not particularly good right now as a Canadian. So, you know, that might sound like a way worse number if you convert it into, I’m kidding. It’s a lot of money. We’re more proud, or I am more proud. I’m the founder and CEO. I’m more proud when more people use the system than when the dollars go up. The reason for that is like, it’s like if you’re a fisher if you’re a fisherperson, the fishermen, the joy of catching fish, and sometimes they’re big and sometimes they’re small, right? But the joy of going through the process of catching the fish is really what it’s about. So we care more about getting lots of fish in the net, getting a lot of people participating and giving, whether they give large amounts or smaller amounts is a secondary consideration. We’re there to help and coach them along the way. And then, you know, Donor-advised funds are also sophisticated, usually, as we are at Charitable Impact. And if someone wants to give a non-cash asset, public trade security, a private company share, you know, cryptocurrency, real estate, we know how to deal with all that too. So, the point is, our mission at Charitable Impact is to increase access to and participation in, and also the benefits people feel. from giving. So we care more about the number of people participating and not so much about the amount of money flowing through the system.

Hugh Ballou:
You mentioned a couple of things in passing. I just wanted to highlight crypto and real estate. Most of us don’t even think about those as a vehicle for giving. So talk a little bit about how you’ve got a donor who’s a philanthropist and wants to use their time and talent and their money. How do they determine which charity they want to support? And on the other side of that, how do we as a charity help bring awareness of what’s important so that donors can recognize the value in the donation? Is that a clear question?

John Bromley:
I think so. The answer is not simple. I’ll try to make it clear. First of all, I think The question allows me to highlight, on behalf of Charitable Impact and every other donor advice fund out there, why donor advice funds are important. Because two things happen every time you make a donation of, well, money, but it’s true of time and your talent also. The first is that you choose to give it away. So I’m going to choose to give $1,000 away. And there’s a whole bunch of thinking and there’s a whole bunch of style of thinking that goes into just deciding that you’re going to give something away, how much you’re going to give away, what asset you might use. Are you going to use crypto Bitcoin to pay for it or are you going to just take cash out of your bank account or off a credit card? So that’s decision number one. Am I going to be a donor? Am I going to take some of my money and give it away? Now, with a donor-advised fund, you can just say, yep, I’m going to do $1,000 and put it straight in your donor-advised fund and kind of go, oh, I’ve achieved something. I’ve given $1,000 away. Now, the second part of giving is what am I going to use that $1,000 for? How am I going to use this $1,000 to create the impact that I want to see? So, you know, there’s all the different causes. I mean, in the United States, there are over a million and a half registered charities as far as I know, right? So the second part of giving is how are we gonna use those charitable dollars? And when we give straight to end using charities for what it’s worth, you’re combining those two things into one. What I’ve seen through all of my time advising both charities and donors is that donors engage more sustainably when they feel more confident and comfortable about participating in charitable giving. And when they separate the donation from the allocation, two things happen. Over time, they find that they make decisions that they feel better about, that they feel better about. And secondly, as a result of that, they take more responsibility for those decisions. And that it’s not the fundraiser’s fault. They asked me for money, and then I gave it to them. And they didn’t use it the way I wanted to. Now I feel terrible about charity. Maybe I’ll stop being charitable. They kind of go, you know what? It was my decision, and I did that. And I could have given to one of the other million charities out there. But I chose that one for the following reasons. Now whether it worked out well for me or not, I’m going to think about that and come back and factor that into my next decision. So, with that as context, I’ll say that how you help people find the charities they’re best at is, in an ideal setting, it’s about getting to know the person. Because some people just want to say, you know, send me your requests and I’ll think about them and send money out to you. And I’m not going to do any research myself. For other people, you need to lead them through a different type of conversation. Like, hey, like Hugh, like you’ve got this enormous background in music, right? Like, what is it about music? And is music something you still love today? And if so, is music an area that you’d like to focus some of your giving on? And when it comes to music, is it about using music to advance people’s education, or is it about making music more accessible to people who can’t afford it, right? And then so you get a causal, you know, what do you love, you get a causal relationship there. And then you’ve already sort of narrowed down the number of charities you want to give to, you know, you want to give to local charities, you want to give to national charities, you want to give to, you know, international charities. Because choosing a charity is a relatively complicated thing to do. I think it’s important enough to say, hey, it’s pretty complicated, but lots of things in life are complex. And we find inordinate joy like it’s complex to cook a good meal. We find inordinate joy in, if you like cooking, on the journey to get towards becoming a better cook. I mean, it’s very complex. I mean, Hugh, you know this better than me, but it’s very complex to play an instrument well. But there’s a journey that we can go on to get better and better over time at playing that musical instrument. And that’s the same with giving. So the joy needs to be found in the complexity of how you’re gonna navigate the experience of choosing. In my example, how you’re gonna spend that $1,000 that you just gave away. How are you gonna find the most joy yourself in giving that $1,000 away?

Hugh Ballou:
And is there a way, and how would you, I don’t know if it’s in your platform or another way, when a donor does that transaction, and you mentioned separating the donation from something, and I missed that piece of it, it’s a mindset piece, but how do we, is it important for us to track what happens with our money and the impact it’s had?

John Bromley:
Well, yes, it is important. What I said was they separate the donation from the allocation, or you separate the donation into the system from the grants that you choose to make yourself out to the registered charities, right? So you must track your money. A donor advice fund can help you do that because no matter what registered charity you choose to send the money to, I mean, the donor advice fund will know what you did and when you did it. So on that level of tracking, a donor advice fund makes all that tracking easier, and fully automated, especially in a web-based world. And then that allows you to have more time to dig in as much as you want to into how you chose to spend your money, what charity you chose to send it to, for example, and what they did with the money. I mean, some people are interested in that, other people aren’t. So I think it’s important to go after that. And again, I think when you have a donor advice fund, it does so much stuff for you that it frees you up to focus your time and energy on the areas of the giving ecosystem that you want to focus on.

Hugh Ballou:
That is great. In my experience, some organizations operate on both sides of the border. They might have a charity here and in Canada, maybe one in Africa. And so they’re truly global, but they’ve got the legal entity in the country. So we might have some listeners from Canada listening here, but we might have some non-profit leaders that also have another entity across the border so that they comply with both places. So that’s not an unusual thing to happen anymore, I don’t think.

John Bromley:
That’s not unusual. To explain what you’re saying to users, generally speaking, there’s no such thing as an international charity. There’s only such thing as an international charitable brand. So you could think of the Red Cross as an international charity, but it’s an international charity brand. And then there’s Red Cross Canada, there’s Red Cross USA, there’s Red Cross Tanzania, there’s Red Cross United Kingdom. And so, yeah, I mean, people are interested, especially people on the charity side are interested in getting access to Canadian donor dollars. Generally speaking, the advice is you need to register a Canadian charity.

Hugh Ballou:
Absolutely. And that’s not beyond feasibility or practicality. So your website, John, I want to encourage that. There are some people just listening to us. It’s called charitableimpact.com. If you’re watching it, it’s right behind his head. Charitableimpact.com. When we go there when people go there, what will they find?

John Bromley:
Well, they’ll find a website and a functional website though, one that has some content and you can read about us and topics that we find interesting. We have a blog and things like that, but you can also sign up to create your own donor-advised fund. Now, if you’re an American, as much as I want to tell you, please use Charitable Impact, you know, we issue Canadian tax receipts. So better if you’re Canadian. But it doesn’t cost anything to sign up, you can sign up and check it out. But you can sign up and log into your donor advice fund just by doing it online. Once you’re there, you can add money. Once you have money in your account, you can hold it until you’re ready to know how to use it or send it to any charity. We have profiles on every registered charity, every Canadian registered charity anyway, so you can find those charities. And, you know, as we progress, you know, and we need to do a better job here. But as we progress, we also create tools to make it easier for people to narrow down, you know, because in Canada, there are 86,000 registered charities in the US, there are about 1.5 million. That’s a How do you choose? But once you say, I’m interested in music and I’m interested in the state of Washington, you can start to narrow that down. And so we’re building tools all the time to build tools that help people navigate more quickly towards what they want to think about giving to. But then we stop short of saying, here’s the best charity. Give to this one. I mean, everyone always asks that. Sometimes we even get phone calls. Well, where’s the best charity to give to? And it’s like, well, I don’t know. Are you a Christian or a Muslim? Because if you’re a Muslim, it might not be this church. But if you’re a Christian, it might be your church. Do you know what I mean? So humans always want to get straight to, you know, get the easy answer to the hard question in the shortest amount of time.

Hugh Ballou:
Yes, go ahead.

John Bromley:
Well, I was just going to say, but actually, that’s where I want to encourage people along towards like sort of a lifelong journey with giving, because like the joy comes from, you know, navigating and making your own decisions, your own pathway decisions, you know, as you plot your way through the charitable forest or whatever analogy you want to apply.

Hugh Ballou:
It’s astounding you have the database that you have. That’s quite astounding and it’s quite a huge resource. This has been a very informative interview and you’ve certainly done your homework and you’ve certainly built a valuable resource that anybody, if I heard you right, anybody can be a philanthropist. And you get deductions if you live in Canada and you want to get the Canadian receipt. Before we let you have the last word, anything else that we didn’t talk about you want to share with our listeners today?

John Bromley:
No, I’m grateful for you inviting me to your show, Hugh. I’m grateful for the time any listeners have provided, or anyone who shares this with others because everyone can give. And when we give, we get something in return ourselves. And so like exercise, like eating healthily, it’s something that I just want to encourage people to build into their lives. And secondly, not to get scared because it’s not super easy all the time, like playing music or playing a sport. You know, giving is something that, you know, if it was so dead easy, what would be the point, right? We wanna encourage people to sort of take on the complexity of it and figure out how to find joy from creating their pathway, and their sense of impact through charitable giving. And it can be fun. It is fun. And the fun relates more to the challenge of it than anything else. And so we wanna encourage people to sort of lean into those challenges in life. and take them on and then don’t worry about being perfect. You can work on being perfect by being self-critical of your decision-making along the way get your friends involved and ask them for feedback. And there are just so many things that we can do to inform and improve our gaming journey. And it’s exactly analogous to learning anything else, whether it’s a sport or a musical instrument or anything like that.

Hugh Ballou:
Wonderful words of advice. That’s a great end for this amazing interview. And you’re certainly an inspiration, sir. Thank you for being our guest today on the Nonprofit Exchange.

John Bromley:
Thank you for having me here.