ChristmasFuture Foundation

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The ChristmasFuture Foundation, founded in Calgary, Canada in 2006, is a registered Canadian charity whose stated goal is to "inspire and empower developed world citizens to refocus their Christmas spending towards funding strategic and sustainable initiatives in villages of the developing world." ChristmasFuture helps people refocus their holiday spending towards the eradication of extreme poverty. This effort is all towards the end of achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

1 History
2 Organizational Structure
3 The Challenge / The Situation
4 Funding
5 Activities
6 Useful Links

[edit] History

Jay Baydala first conceived of ChristmasFuture in 2005. A team of 4 people (Glen Mackey, David Yarema, Lynette Stephenson, and Jay Baydala) was responsible for expanding and refining the concepts and then defining core components of the organization. ChristmasFuture Foundation was incorporated in June 2006. Shortly thereafter, on June 20, 2006, ChristmasFuture was granted charitable status in Canada. Since then the organization has grown to include 1 full-time employee and more than 55 volunteers.

ChristmasFuture was launched as a pilot project at the Calgary Science School during Christmas 2006. During this time, the ChristmasFuture team created a week-long humanities curriculum focused on global citizenship, extreme poverty, and NGO’s for grades 4 – 9. Throughout the last week of November 2006 the entire school (600 students) learned the curriculum; many of the students returned home and asked their parents to redirect the amount spent on a single gift towards the selected project in Sauri, Kenya. The teachers also played a part by asking the students who intended to purchase a Christmas gift for their teacher to refocus that spending towards the same project in Sauri, Kenya. This single pilot project raised over $10 000 CDN for the building of a school library as part of the Millennium Village Project.

[edit] Organizational Structure

A board of directors, currently chaired by Roy Moore, oversees the ChristmasFuture Foundation. The board meets every 6 weeks to appoint senior officers, approve strategic plans and budgets, and determine international policy.

The Board of Directors:
Roy Moore, the Chairman, brings the organization over 25 years of business leadership experience and is very skilled in delivering complex projects. He is the former chairman and a founding director of the Light Up Then World (LUTW) Foundation.

Adam Hedayat, a Director, brings the organization over 29 years of leadership experience in international business, as well as a vast international network of contacts.

Glen Mackey, a Director, brings over 16 years of Corporate Strategy, Information Technology, and Finance experience to the team.

Gena Rotstein, a Director, brings her vast experience and network of contacts in the non-profit sector and fund development arena to assist ChristmasFuture accomplish their goal of eradicating extreme poverty.

David Yarema, a Director, brings over 14 years experience in Design, Branding, and Communications to empower ChristmasFuture to define and communicate the vision to all stakeholders.

Evan Hu, a Director, brings his proven record of success in the IT business, including his current ventures: Ideaca and Maple Music. His enthusiasm, vision, professional experience, and contacts are all great assets to ChristmasFuture.

Lorne Jaques, a Director, brings his vast experience and contacts in International Development gained through engagements with the U.N. and in his current role as Senior Director of International Development at the University of Calgary to the ChristmasFuture organization. His wisdom, understanding, vision, clear thought, and international contacts are all great assets to ChristmasFuture.

Peter Jamieson, a Director, is the current Chair Elect of the Calgary Health Region’s Medical Advisory Board and the Division Chief of Family Medicine. He brings a rare mix of knowledge, skills, and contacts to assist the ChristmasFuture team.

Ryan McDonald, a Director, his experience in strategic new technology and management consulting, improving organizations, and network of corporate contacts are all great assets to the ChristmasFuture team.

Jay Baydala, previously an Information Technology Project Manager for 13 years, is the organization’s CEO and founder. He passionately leads the organization towards realizing their vision.

The CEO of the organization is Jay Baydala. He works with a full-time volunteer General Manager, Kim Kueber. Kim is responsible for managing the 7 operational teams within the organization (Technology, Partnerships, School Programs, Marketing & Communications, Finance, Fundraising, Human Resources / Volunteers, and Governance teams). More than 55 volunteers populate these teams.

[edit] The Challenge / The Situation

The Developed World
Consumerism and materialism have become predominant in North American culture, and reaches a peak during the Christmas Season. In North America alone we spend over $1 Trillion USD during the Christmas season, and it continues to rise year after year. ChristmasFuture believes that gift-giving is one way to demonstrate our love for one another, and we also believe that we could change the world by broadening the recipients of our love.

What used to be a celebration of life through spending time and sharing gifts with those we love has somehow become a celebration of consumerism and materialism. The pressure and competition to buy more of what we do not need, or often even want, has taken its toll on our personal wellbeing, our relationships, and the joy of true giving.

The Developing World
Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends are dying right now in the developing world due to completely preventable causes. Extreme poverty is killing 22,000 people every single day. It is difficult to truly grasp the unnecessary devastation that is gaining momentum in the lives of our global neighbors.

• Each year, more than 8 million people around the world die from fully preventable causes because they are too poor to stay alive…22,000 people every day
• Over 1 billion people live in extreme poverty - under $1 / day

The World
The question on many people’s mind is:

“So much has been tried already, and has been relatively unsuccessful - can we really do anything about these issues?”

The developed world has tried many times and in many ways to help, but efforts have often suffered from one or more of the following:

• Lack non-governmental organization (NGO) transparency of both efforts and of results
• Lack of accountability regarding spending and for results
• Excessive overhead
• Lack of sustainable change
• Solutions dependent upon outside (Western) cultures rather than respecting existing culture
• Corruption
• Tied aid / conditional aid

[edit] Funding

100% of donor funding will go directly to the projects they choose, commencing with Christmas 2007 launch.

100% of ChristmasFuture's operational funding comes from private sources, including individuals, corporations, and foundations. ChristmasFuture will fund their operations entirely by interest revenues by year 7.

[edit] Activities

• Preparing for the launch during Christmas 2007.
• ChristmasFuture has completed a pilot project at the Calgary Science School to raise funds for a new library as part of the Millennium Villages Project Sauri Cluster in the Kenya highlands west of the Rift Valley. Over 600 students, teachers, and parents were involved a week-long education program about extreme poverty, which was follow by a fund raising program for the 2006 Christmas season.
• Empowering North Americans to refocus holiday spending using DonorTrust
• Building DonorTrust - an open source project initiated under GPL on RubyForge (http://rubyforge.org/projects/donortrust/). DonorTrust is a piece of software that empowers a model of lower overheads, greater transparency, and proof-of-impact feedback for the donor.
• ChristmasFuture is currently researching and selecting potential development partners to include in our database for funding during the 2007 Christmas season.
• ChristmasFuture is currently raising it’s first round of operational funding ($450,000 CDN). By year 7 ChristmasFuture operations will be self-sustaining through the interest revenues from project donations, with additional interest revenues going towards projects. Until then operations will be funded through personal donations directed specifically towards operations. All project donations will go towards projects.