Why Donate?
When you donate to Carmichael Outreach, you are supporting a grassroots organization that believes in the strength of community that it serves. We offer many programs and services aimed at supporting marginalized and vulnerable members of the community. We work hard every day to remind people of the value and respect they deserve.
The operations of Carmichael Outreach are heavily funded by fundraisers and donations. Your financial support will directly impact our ability to provide important, ground-level programs that service the needs of the community.
Monetary Donations
Carmichael Outreach relies heavily on passionate community partners to make a difference! We do our best to operate in an efficient manner and help as many people as possible with financial donations.
If you would like to speak to someone at Carmichael Outreach about a major gift or large financial donation, please email development@carmichaeloutreach.ca or call 306-519-7580. Our team will be happy to take your call, answer any questions you may have, and help make donating to our organization as easy as possible.
TAX RECEIPTS
Tax receipts will be provided for any donations of $20 or more, and are sent out at the end of the year.
We encourage our neighbours interested in financially supporting us to consider donating via credit card our Online Giving Portal. Donors will receive a tax receipt instantly emailed to them, and it greatly reduces the amount of administrative processing for our small team of volunteers and staff.
If you are missing a tax receipt from this or any previous year, please contact finance by email at finance@carmichaeloutreach.ca and we can send it over. Please include information about your donation such as amount, when the donation was made, and cheque number (if possible). This information helps us to find your donation more quickly so that we can get it to you as soon as possible.
WHAT IS RECEIPTED?
Tax receipts may be provided for in-kind donations (donations of items rather than money) if they are new items and you have a receipt or invoice clearly stating the value of the items donated.
We generally do not provide tax receipts for donations of used items. We will only provide a tax receipt for used items if the items have first been appraised, and you provide proof of the appraisal value for our records so that we can provide this proof to the CRA if requested.
A NOTE TO FUNDRAISING PARTNERS: To ensure that we will be able to provide you and your donors with a receipt, please reach out to our Development Coordinator via email at development@carmichaeloutreach.ca to review best practices/requirements for accepting, tracking, and receipting of donations for fundraisers you are running in support of Carmichael Outreach. We do not automatically guarantee receipts for fundraisers that we do not run / collect payment for directly.
Food Donations
Our Food Security Program is one of our key pillars of service. We serve hot nutritious meals for free six out of seven days a week, and serve between 250-300 meals per day! We have a very small budget for this program, and donations from community partners help to supplement those costs.
If you’d like to be a sponsor for our Food Security Program you can contact our development coordinator at development@carmichaeloutreach.ca
Item Donations
Where and when: Carmichael Outreach, donation door (west side of building), located at 1510 12th Avenue on Friday from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm or until we reach capacity. Call reception to book an appointment Monday through Thursday. If unable to make an appointment call in advance to see if we’re accepting donations for that day.
What: Carmichael Outreach accepts donations of certain new and used items (see donation poster for details on items that we can and cannot accept) to be provided to the community. We receive hundreds of items each week, relying on our dedicated and hard-working volunteers to keep the process running smoothly.
How Does It Work?
Step 1: Generous and kind community members bring us the items they would like to donate
Step 2: Staff and volunteers help unload the donations and bring them downstairs to our sorting room
Step 3: Volunteers sort through the donations to ensure that items are acceptable, and aren’t dirty or broken. Donated items are then set aside for one of the following uses:
- Boutique – Most donated items go into our Boutique, where community members can “shop” for the items they need free of charge;
- Housing Support Program – Our housing team helps people find, move into, and maintain housing, and can use donated items to help turn houses into homes and ensure people have the things they need.
- Raffles and Bingo – Sometimes we receive really incredible donations from really incredible people. Highly desirable items such as bikes, brand name clothing, and other rare luxury items, are often set aside to be used as prizes for free raffles and bingo’s. This is a fun way to ensure that Carmichael guests have a fair chance to win great prizes, and helps us bring community together.
- Community Living – Sometimes we get too many items that we aren’t able to use. These items are then donated to Community Living.
