David Chilton Proposal — Rock 1

Everything in [square brackets] is a placeholder only Talbot can fill. Facts used are from the KB only (origin story notes, Filter+Focus, Strategic Plan v2). Nothing about Dave’s personal life, platform, or charitable history has been assumed.

1 · Strategy Notes (read before editing the draft)

The ask ladder — email asks ONLY for a call:

Rung	Ask	When
1	20-minute call	The email. Nothing else.
2	Cancer50Pledge Founding Signatory #1 — his name launches the movement	On the call
3	A usable quote / launch-moment participation	Only if the call goes well
4	Light advisory involvement (a few calls/year, sounding board)	Only if HE leans in — never pitched

Why this framing:

He’s retiring in ~6 months. The pitch is legacy, not labour — a signature that multiplies 35 years of impact, explicitly requiring zero calendar.
His first business was literally this: mornings finding the best GIC rates with a buddy and recommending them. mBR is that business reborn with automation. That echo is the emotional core of the email — it makes this his story, not a pitch.
He has a famously sharp BS detector. Understate everything. No “revolutionary,” no “disrupting.” Numbers honest, claims verifiable, ask small.
Do NOT lead with equity/advisory. A retiring, wealthy, skeptical Chilton hears “advisor + equity” as work + risk. If rung 2 lands, rungs 3–4 emerge naturally.

⚠ Open design decision Talbot must make before sending — what does “Founding Signatory #1” actually commit him to?

Option A (recommended): Signatory = movement launcher. He lends his name to launch the Cancer 50 Pledge movement — like the first names on the Giving Pledge. No financial commitment required from him. Lightest possible yes; matches “legacy not labour.”
Option B: Signatory = pledger. He makes his own 50%-of-profits pledge on whatever scope he chooses. Much bigger ask for a retiring man; risks a polite no.
The draft below is written for Option A, with the door open for him to go further if he wants. If you want Option B, the one-pager needs rewriting.

Sequencing dependencies (from Strategic Plan v2):

Email does NOT need the mBR site live. But if he googles, cancer50pledge.pages.dev should be presentable. Pre-send checklist item: 1–2 hr polish pass on the pledge page, or omit the URL from the email entirely (current draft includes no URL for this reason — the one-pager carries the substance).
Stronger on the call if the “first dollar → first donation” story exists (Rock 3). Nice-to-have, not a blocker — don’t wait for it.

Anti-goals: no mass-mail feel, no deck attached to the first email, no deadline pressure on him, no cancer-guilt framing, no mention of other candidate signatories by name (he’s #1 or nothing in this draft).

2 · Draft Email (from Talbot, personal)

Subject: An echo of your first business — and a favour that needs 20 minutes, not a job

Dave,

[One personal opening line — reference your last contact / how long it’s been. Only you know this.]

Two things have happened since we last talked, and they’ve collided into something I’d like 20 minutes of your time on — emphasis on 20 minutes, because I know what your inbox looks like as the retirement clock runs down.

The first: in 2022 I was diagnosed with stage-4 cancer. The Canadian system spent about $440,000 saving my life. My total out-of-pocket was under $200 — mostly parking. During treatment I made a pledge: at least 50% of the profits from everything I build from now on goes to cancer research, publicly tracked, written into my estate. My target is to hand cancer research a $10 million cheque. I’m calling it the Cancer 50 Pledge.

The second is the business funding it — and this is where you’ll smile. You’ve told the story of your first venture: you and a buddy, every morning, finding the best GIC rates in the country and recommending them. I’ve rebuilt that business for 2026. Software now scans 43 institutions and nearly 100 products daily — savings, GICs, mortgages, the works — and tells a Canadian only when switching is genuinely worth their hassle, in dollars, after the friction. And it will happily tell them to pay down their 20% Visa instead of opening the account that pays us a referral fee, because that’s the honest math. Half of every dollar of profit goes to cancer research.

Here’s the favour, and it isn’t a job: I’m launching the Cancer 50 Pledge with 50 numbered founding signatures, and I want your name to be #1 — the way the first names on the Giving Pledge made it real for everyone who followed. It asks nothing of your calendar. It’s a signature, not a commitment of time or money. What it does is take everything your name has meant to Canadians and their money for 35 years and point it at one more thing that outlasts all of us.

[Optional personal line: you were part of how I got started — your self-publishing advice and encouragement on my first book. If there’s a version of this business you almost built with me 15 years ago, this is it, with better tools and a better reason.]

Can I get 20 minutes — phone or coffee, your call — sometime in the next few weeks?

Talbot

Notes on the draft:

Length is deliberate: long enough to be real, short enough to read once. ~280 words.
The only URL-free version is safest until the pledge page is polished.
[Does Dave already know about the cancer? If yes, rewrite paragraph 2’s opening from “reveal” to “as you know” — a false reveal to someone who knows reads as staged.]

The Cancer 50 Pledge — Founding Signatory #1

What it is. A public, verified commitment by business owners to donate at least 50% of profits to cancer research. Modeled on Giving What We Can and the Giving Pledge. Tracked openly at cancer50pledge.ca; commitments are annual-verified, and mine is secured in my estate.

Where it started. Stage-4 cancer, 2022. $440,000 of care; under $200 out-of-pocket. The pledge was made during treatment, before there was a business to fund it. Goal: a $10M cheque to cancer research — roughly 22.7× what my survival cost the system.

The engine behind it. myBetterRates — automated, verified rate intelligence across 43 Canadian institutions and ~100 products, updated daily since April 2026. It alerts a Canadian only when switching beats their personal “worth it” threshold — typically fewer than 3 alerts a year — and recommends against its own commission when the honest math says so (pay the Visa first). Revenue: standard referral fees, same rails as every comparison site — minus the bias. At least 50% of profits: cancer research, forever.

The ask. Fifty numbered founding signatures launch the movement. Signature #1 is reserved for you.

What it costs you: nothing — no time, no money, no ongoing role.
What your name is used for: the numbered founding wall and the launch announcement. Nothing else, ever, without your explicit approval — in writing.
Why you: the most trusted name in Canadian personal finance, whose first business was finding Canadians better rates — signing the pledge that funds cancer research through a business doing exactly that, 40 years later.

If you ever want more — a sounding board call, a story to tell, a harder question to ask — the door is open. But the signature alone is the gift.

Talbot Stevens · [phone] · tstevens99@gmail.com

4 · Call Prep — anticipated objections

He says	Response
”I don’t endorse products.”	Agreed — and this isn’t one. The signature is on the pledge movement, not myBetterRates. The one-pager states the usage scope in writing: founding wall + launch announcement, nothing else without approval.
”Is the pledge real or marketing?”	Publicly tracked, annually verified, estate-backed. [If Rock 3 done: “The first referral dollar has already produced the first donation — here’s the ledger.”] And it’s ≥50% of profits from all my businesses post-2023, not just this one.
”What if the business fails?”	Then the pledge cost cancer research nothing and your signature still helped launch 49 others. Downside is zero; that’s the design.
”Why not just donate quietly?”	Same reason the Giving Pledge isn’t quiet: the public number recruits the next pledger. Munger’s Les Schwab story — giving half away was the growth strategy.
”I’m retiring. Wrong guy.”	Retirement is exactly why: this is a signature that keeps working after the calendar empties. Legacy, not labour.
”Send me something.”	One-pager (section 3), same day, nothing more.
He leans in (“how would I be involved?”)	Rung 3–4 territory — describe, don’t push: occasional sounding board; a launch-moment story only if he wants it. Let him name the shape.

5 · Pre-Send Checklist

Talbot fills all [placeholders] — greeting, last-contact line, cancer-knowledge check, optional book paragraph, phone number
Decision: Option A (signatory = launcher, drafted) vs Option B (signatory = pledger)
Decision: polish cancer50pledge.pages.dev first, or send URL-free (drafted URL-free)
Send channel: [email address / mutual contact / other — only Talbot knows the right door]
Calendar the follow-up: if no reply in 2 weeks, one short nudge; never a third