WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE’S A WAY: SUPPORTING A HEALTHIER FUTURE FOR CANADA’S KIDS
Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) annually treats 150,000 patients for everything from broken arms to rare cancers and heart defects. Many are vulnerable infants who arrive from across the province, country, and world. The hospital also performs cutting edge research and trains 300 international fellows annually.
Despite its exceptional reputation as a world-leading paediatric hospital, SickKids is showing its age. Some parts of the 70-year-old hospital building can’t meet the growing needs of patients and families. Children deserve to be treated in a facility that has space for their families to have privacy and can accommodate modern technology, like the weight of an MRI machine.
This is why SickKids launched a historic campaign to build a new hospital. Currently under construction in Toronto, the new hospital for the future was designed after extensive consultation with medical personnel, architects, and a host of other experts.
To support the vision of the hospital, SickKids Foundation relies on the generosity of the community and volunteers to help raise the needed funds. The Foundation, for example, benefits from the SickKids Professional Advisors Council (PAC) – leading industry professionals who volunteer to champion philanthropy and provide strategic insight.
For Michael Flux, PAC founding member and Executive Vice-President and Portfolio Manager for Connor, Clark & Lunn Private Capital Ltd., the process of rebuilding SickKids is similar to the process of investment planning and making philanthropic giving part of your legacy. It requires careful consideration of the future you want to create, and it goes smoothly if you get the experts (financial planners, investment counselors, lawyers, and tax specialists) involved early.
“At my firm, we manage money and offer investment planning services for affluent families,” Flux says. “Once clients know their core needs will be met, we show them that any future excess capital can open up a world of possibilities, including spending more on lifestyle, providing for future generations, and supporting charities close to their hearts”
Allocating cash — or better yet, appreciated investments— to a charity like SickKids when you’re still alive is very rewarding, Flux contends. But giving a legacy gift through a bequest in your will might enable you to make an even bigger impact without using assets you need during your lifetime. “Once financial needs are taken care of, you can dream about the positive social impact you want to have, and the legacy you can create as a family,” he says.
The tax benefits of making a donation to SickKids in your will are compelling, says Katie Kaplan, PAC member and Tax Partner at BDO Canada LLP. You can leave a piece of property, securities, cash, or a percentage of your estate to SickKids; in return, you’ll get a charitable tax receipt that can lower or eliminate income taxes owing by your estate. Whatever the size of the gift, there are financial and personal benefits to including a charity in your will.
Another way to get more bang from your charitable buck is to donate a life insurance policy. “If you have a policy that you don’t need because your kids are independent adults,” Kaplan explains, “you can name SickKids as the beneficiary or policy owner.”
Saving taxes is appealing to many Canadians, but for Lalit Aggarwal — member of the SickKids Foundation Board and PAC, and President of Manor Park Holdings — the benefits of donating to SickKids go far beyond the monetary.
In 2011, one of Aggarwal’s twins was born with renal failure. “For the first year of his life, my son Ryan spent three or four months as an in-patient at SickKids,” he says. Ryan was eventually big enough to survive a kidney transplant, which was performed in 2015.
“Ryan didn’t have the most conventional first four years of life,” says Aggarwal, “but he started kindergarten on time and now he’s just an ordinary kid.” Aggarwal credits the skills of the SickKids doctors and some of the research and treatments it pioneered, with ensuring his son survived and thrived.
Donors, he points out, are key to ensuring SickKids remains at the front of pediatric care. “People think hospitals are publicly funded, so why do they need the money?” Aggarwal says.
Once financial needs are taken care of, you can dream about the positive social impact you want to have, and the legacy you can create as a family. Michael Flux
Executive Vice-President and Portfolio Manager for Connor, Clark & Lunn
Private Capital Ltd.
If you have a policy that you don’t need because your kids are independent adults, you can name SickKids as the beneficiary or policy owner.
Katie Kaplan
Partner at BDO Canada LLP
Ryan didn’t have the most conventional first four years of life, but he started kindergarten on time and now he’s just an ordinary kid.
Lalit Aggarwal
President of Manor Park Holdings
“But a lot of the care and innovations Ryan benefited from simply aren’t covered.” And when it comes to making a positive impact on future generations, “it’s pretty hard to argue against healthier kids.”
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