Last week Steve and I had the opportunity to bring Esther's Echo to a law firm that deals specifically with Canadian charity laws. Esther's Echo and Esther's Arts (our social enterprise which will import handicrafts and clothing from overseas) can be registered as legal entities in a matter of days. But becoming a fully registered charity is another matter. Registering for charitable status in Canada can take between 9 to 16 months to accomplish.

Most organizations that use an online platform to connect projects overseas with donors, such as we intend to do, work through third party charities either in their own country or in other developed nations. The reason for this is the way that charity laws are designed. In Canada, money that has been donated to a charity cannot be sent to a non-Canadian (and in some cases non-US) charity. Rather than send funds directly to a community initiative in a developing country, these organizations send funds to another charity that is working in these communities. Esther's Echo wants to send funds directly to community leaders without using a third party. Canada does not allow this direct transfer in order to protect donors and ensure that funds are being used effectively.

The law firm we spoke with informed us that in order for our model to work, we will need our community partners to effectively become agents of Esther's Echo to carry out the mandate of our organization. This becomes a bit of a catch 22 since the mission of Esther's Echo is to support community organizations and their own mandates. To reconcile this loop, we must craft a mission that is broad enough to encompass the various poverty alleviation efforts undertaken by the thousands of community organizations across the world so that, in a sense, these organizations become agents of our mandate by conducting their activities.

We are presently working to construct these mission goals and decide how to formally connect with our potential community partners as agents of Esther's Echo. Our next step is to develop a means of screening our community projects to ensure our commitment to our donors and stakeholders like you.

We will keep you all posted on how this develops. Remember to stay in touch, sign on for our RSS feed and send us an e-mail if you have any questions about what we do!

Small contributions, BIG CHANGE!!

Matthew