About
Benefaction Foundation is a public foundation that enables individuals and families to make a positive impact through planned giving. Our mission is to encourage philanthropy by helping Canadians maximize charitable giving while minimizing tax burdens. We will help you and your advisor by making it easy to add charitable giving to your overall wealth management and estate plan.
Our vehicle for charitable giving is Donor Advised Funds, which allow individuals, families, or corporations to establish their own Fund without all the expense and hassle of creating a private foundation. Our Donors can choose a name for their Fund and use it as a way of engaging family members in creating social good through the charitable grants issued from the Fund. Our Funds are structured without limits on granting and we are cause neutral meaning donors can support whichever registered charities or other qualified donees are important to them. This also allows donors to support multiple causes simultaneously.
Another important advantage of Funds is flexibility. Our donors can give to different organizations over time as they learn of new charities to support or as world events transpire causing them to want to give differently. This flexibility extends to legacy giving as well. The Fund can be named as a beneficiary in your Will and the recipients of grants from the Fund can be updated at any time without needing to update your Will. Most donors choose to establish the Fund in their lifetime so they can experience the joy of giving, and then they augment the Fund via a charitable bequest in their Will to create a legacy of support for the causes and organizations they cherish.
Ultimately, Benefaction is here to help individuals across Canada achieve personalized and lasting social impact.
Our Impact
“Our DAF at Benefaction Foundation has allowed us to support the organizations we hold most dear, without the administrative burden and complexity of doing it ourselves. Our fund also positions us to provide a managed legacy of giving after we are gone” – Alan & Lynn, Ontario.
Thanks to the generosity of our donors like Alan and Lynn, close to 4,700 grants representing $35 million were issued by Benefaction in 2022. These grants were distributed amongst 1,500+ registered Canadian charities, each with diverse charitable purposes.
Additionally, Benefaction believes in the importance of philanthropy not just for our donors. Since 2017 Benefaction has been giving back with our Directors Fund, where each Director is given an annual amount to disburse based on their weighted average years of service, and Philanthropy Fund, established to support organizations that promote philanthropy and charitable gift planning. In 2022, Benefaction also started a Reciprocity Fund, which is our effort to acknowledge the systemic inequalities that pervade our society, including the philanthropic sector. Benefaction is currently using this fund to support Indigenous organizations across Canada, but we plan to expand the reach of this Fund over time.
