The Victoria Foundation is providing opportunities for young people who want to give back to the community through their own endowment fund.
According to the foundation, the endowment fund plan allows for young people to give back with the foundation matching a donation amount over two years, equalling $10,000.
“The participant has to put in $5,000 over two years, and then the Victoria Foundation matches that $5,000,” said Kate Donahue, philanthropic services specialist with the Victoria Foundation. “So it’s a great opportunity for younger donors who might not have the financial ability to create an endowment fund to participate.”
The foundation’s opportunity has allowed young people like Bhupinder Dulku to give back to his community. Dulku’s family moved to Victoria in 1982 where he was born and raised watching his family work in the food and beverage catering industry.
He says growing up in that environment allowed him to learn about gratitude, prompting him to want to give back in the areas of food security through the foundation.
“The onset of our fund is very much focused on food security,” said Dulku. “Wanting to give back to those that have either been underprivileged, or marginalized, or don’t have the opportunities to access food and food security in the same way that many others do.”
He would go on to make a permanent endowment fund, called the Gadsen Initiative after the 1936 Victoria Foundation founder Burges Gadsen, with guidance from the Victoria Foundation.
For Dulku, the foundation’s system has allowed him to have a platform for giving back as a young person.
“The Gadsden Initiative, and especially the Victoria Foundation, not only gave myself a medium to be involved, but also a means to also provide equity and capital, and be very active in supporting,” said Dulku. “Whether it’s different community initiatives or other sustainable development goals that the united nations have set out.”
For those looking to support the Gadsen initiative, the program begins this fall and the foundation asks for participants to reach out soon as there are limited spaces.
“We are limited to thirty funds, and so that probably will equate to about fifty people, because some people will participate as individuals and some people will participate as couples,” said Donahue.
For Gen Xers and Millennials looking to give back, Dulku says to just begin and see where things go.
“Just start,” he said. “It might be ten dollars, might be five dollars, and you’ll find that as you become an active member of the community, from a young age, you start learning more and more about what is happening around you.”
To learn more about the Victoria Foundation, visit their website at victoriafoundation.bc.ca.
READ MORE: More than 140 local organizations receive grant money from the Victoria Foundation
Veronica Cooper
