Gore Mutual urges Canadians to join GivingTuesday

The financial services firm has donated $50,000 to the annual fundraising drive

Gore Mutual urges Canadians to join GivingTuesday
Steve Randall

Canada’s oldest property and casualty insurers has kicked off an annual focus on charitable giving with a $50,000 donation.

Gore Mutual Insurance Company is urging Canadians to help charities in their own communities as the annual GivingTuesday movement gets underway today (Dec. 3).

"This year, we celebrated 180 years of business and giving has certainly been an integral part of our identity throughout our history as a mutual insurance company," said Gore Mutual President and CEO, Heidi Sevcik. "We feel we have a corporate social responsibility to support communities and causes across Canada. Partnering with GivingTuesday is a natural fit and through social media we hope to influence others to make a positive impact to charities in their own communities."

GivingTuesday is a global movement, co-founded by online fundraising platform CanadaHelps in 2013.

To support the 86,000 charities in Canada this year, CanadaHelps has launched the #GiveALatte campaign this year. The idea is that if all 37.5 million Canadians donated $5 (the cost of a latte) almost $190 million would be raised for Canadian charities.

"There's a misconception that only big donations matter or make a difference," says CanadaHelps CEO, Marina Glogovac. "But we have seen time and time again — from micro-donation campaigns to huge social movements — that many people working together can have a huge impact."

Bringing us together

For Gore Mutual, the fundraiser has generated conversation among its national network of insurance brokers and its customers; all were asked to nominate the charities they would like to receive $5,000 grants.

"These days it's easy to focus on the things that pull us apart," says Marina Glogovac, President and CEO, CanadaHelps, co-founders of the GivingTuesday movement in Canada. "But, GivingTuesday is one of those rare things that brings the entire world together."

Last year, more than 6 million Canadians participated in GivingTuesday with more than $15 million in online charitable donations.

Almost 96% of Canadians polled by CanadaHelps said that small donations can add up to a huge difference and more than 75% prefer to support charities in their local community.

"After the chaos and consumerism of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we hope that Canadians will join together on December 3rd to do some good and #GiveALatte," concluded Glogovac.

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