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Written by Richard Ciano
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Thursday, 08 April 2010 11:29 |
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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called a general election for May 6 and the web is already active with political sites.
One interesting site recently featured in the UK’s Guardian newspaper allows voters and candidates to upload campaign literature that anyone can access. UK residents can locate their local candidate’s literature or browse through any of the uploaded pamphlets.
Since paid television advertising is illegal in Britain, print advertising, whether newspapers or literature, is far more influential than in Canada. Now anyone in Britain (or the world) can access candidates’ literature at www.thestraightchoice.org.
The site’s creators state they are non-partisan and see their site as a “real-time election leaflet project. Our ambition is to create a live visualization of the flood of party political leaflets as they are delivered across the country during an election campaign.”
I am very impressed with the creativity of this new site, which mixes a very traditional form of politics (campaign literature and pamphlets) with new technology. We will almost certainly see this concept spread to Canada for future elections.
Both local riding campaigns and central parties will need to improve the quality of their literature if any candidate’s materials can be uploaded to the net. We may see the end of centrally-produced standard literature in some parties if every piece of literature is on one site. No party will want every item to look the same!
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Written by Nick Kouvalis
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Tuesday, 06 April 2010 09:48 |
BY CHRIS VANDER DOELEN, THE WINDSOR STARAPRIL 6, 2010
Former Chrysler worker Nick Kouvalis knows so much about campaigning for political office, he has it down to a science. And a business employing 70 people.
The Windsor pollster and political consultant recently gave a free clinic for would-be municipal candidates on how to go about winning a seat on city council or a local school board.
A couple of the people who attended last Wednesday might even win a seat this fall, if they follow his recipe to the letter.
What Kouvalis gave them in a machine-gun 30-minute presentation was the non-partisan, naked political truth learned in a decade of campaigning. He's like a municipal Machiavelli -- without the knives.
Anyone who took notes and intends following his advice to the letter stands a better chance of sitting down as a member of city council or one of the four school boards after the municipal elections Oct. 25.
Kouvalis, principal executive of Windsor political firm Campaign Research, says that under the new 10-ward system, winning a council seat in Windsor is now as easy as convincing 3,300 people to vote for you.
Read the complete story at the Windsor Star.com
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Written by Nick Kouvalis
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Monday, 22 February 2010 21:33 |
Residents of Ontario and BC will see a change to their sales tax system come into effect on July 1 of this year. The federal and Ontario governments have passed bills to establish the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) which will combine the GST with the old provincial sales tax (RST). The BC government is expected to passed a similar bill in the next few months. Sales tax in Ontario will now be charged at a full rate of 13% on all non-exempt goods and services. The chief practical effect of this is to increase sales tax on services that previously were only taxed by the federal GST. An article and discussion in the Globe and Mail in September outlined some of what this will mean for charities in BC and Ontario. Here’s the part on charities: Charities
Hilda: I work for a small charity that claims back the PST it pays, on printing of educational materials for the charity and other items. How will the HST affect this?
Rod Butcher: Charities will no longer pay the ORST or BC SST. Ontario charities will receive an 82% rebate of the provincial 8% for the provincial tax they pay. BC charities will receive 57% rebates. The factors were designed to reflect the net impact on charities of changing the retail sales tax to a broad-based tax like the HST.
Craig: I'm on the board of a small charity that currently claims GST, but not PST. How will this affect our rebate claims, and is there anything we'll need to do?
Rod Butcher: By claiming GST, I assume you mean you have registered and are recovering GST rebates. Charities will be able to recover 82% (in Ontario) and 57% (if in BC) of the provincial component of the HST paid in those provinces. It will be claimed on your periodic GST return, and there is nothing extra you need to do.
The tax changes may not mean a lot for a charities or non-profits directly, but I would encourage everyone to be aware of possible effects on clients or suppliers. You can find out more about the new system, including exemptions, at the sites below.
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Written by Richard Ciano
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Thursday, 14 January 2010 11:37 |
Before the internet, our sources of information about public events or scientific discussions came from established and limited sources – such as newspapers, television news, magazines, journals or books. Individual citizens and groups could research or discuss any issue they wished, but to get their views across to large numbers of people they had to follow a traditional method of information-sharing. Only those views and opinions acceptable to editors, publishers or the media could be shared with the multitudes.
Today, all this has changed.
Any citizen with access to a computer can spread their own ideas. Thousands of individuals are doing their own research and putting it online. Ordinary people are now investigating stories, reading over budgets, scientific reports, government and corporate documents and putting what they believe to be the truth on the internet for everyone to see.
One website run by such an ordinary citizen is www.climateaudit.org run by Canadian Stephen McIntyre. His blog is devoted to the discussion and analysis of climate data. Colby Cosh in Macleans (Dec. 19, 2009) writes about the influence of McIntyre’s blog:
“The private emails and logs leaked last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia can’t tell us whether industrial activity is really heating the earth’s atmosphere and endangering civilization. But they have settled the identity of the Great Satan of climate science. Torontonian Stephen McIntyre, a gentle, persistent amateur who had no credentials in applied science before stepping into the global warming debate in 2003, is mentioned more than 100 times.”
Now I am not writing about McIntyre’s website to make a point about the issue of climate change. What I find interesting is the power of one individual private citizen to influence a public debate. Ten years ago this would have been close to impossible. Today anyone can comment on public issues – and many go beyond commenting, assembling research and perhaps even changing the outcome of a debate.
When Campaign Research performs market research, we are seeking out and interpreting the opinions of Canadians about issues that matter to our clients. What is exciting about the internet today is not just the opportunity to consult people on their views, but the opportunity it provides individuals and groups to work to change the views of other people; to educate them on the importance of a social issue or cause.
At Campaign Research, we have clients who come to us with good ideas. But these good ideas can only be used to make a difference if the public learns about them and comes to accept their value. We use the internet to build interest in ideas, just like bloggers such as Stephen McIntyre do.
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Written by Nick Kouvalis
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Friday, 11 December 2009 14:42 |
Every year the Christmas shopping season seems to start earlier and earlier. One of the most common sights during this season is the Salvation Army volunteer with a red kettle outside numerous stores and shopping malls. The famous “red kettles” are one of the best-know fundraising methods used by charitable organization for fundraising, both in Canada and around the world. The first kettle program started raising money in San Francisco in 1891. The funds the Salvation Army raises are dedicated to helping the poor and vulnerable and they make the organization the “largest non-governmental provider of social services in Canada.”
The red kettles we see every Christmas are not only familiar – they are tremendously successful. In 2008, the Salvation Army Christmas Kettles received a record $16 million in donations, up 12% from the $14.3 million the drive received in 2007. It is important to note that these totals are only for the kettle donations.
Yet the Salvation Army does not depend solely on its tried-and-true successful method of fundraising. In the two months before Christmas last year it raised more than $2.5 million in online donations. And it has set up an imaginative ‘iKettle” program which lets donors set up and maintain their own virtual kettle – which raised $131,000 through 168 kettles in 2008. The year before it had raised $31,000 through 98 kettles.
The iKettle provides a simple online tool that participants can use to build a custom iKettle webpage and invite by email their friends, families or co-workers to make a donation to the Salvation Army. iKettles have been set up by a diverse group of participants including private citizens, radio programs and local branches of the Salvation Army itself. This year the Salvation Army went even further and launched a national text message donation program – its first use of mobile technology to raise funds for the vulnerable and marginalized.
The Salvation Army’s fundraising programs are run by some of the most highly-respected fundraisers in the business and they illustrate some important points. First, if you are doing something that works, keep doing it. Don’t try to re-invent success. Secondly, while keeping what’s good about your program, don’t be afraid to innovate and make use of new technology. The Salvation Army has shown that you can take a theme that has existed for 120 years – the red kettles – and re-invent it for a new century.
One of our goals in helping build fundraising campaigns is to help you build on your existing strengths to meet new goals. The Salvation Army is a great example of building a strong and successful fundraising operation, one step at a time.
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