Implementing the Cancer50Pledge — v2
Section titled “Implementing the Cancer50Pledge — v2”Settled approach · supersedes v1
Context and constraints
Section titled “Context and constraints”The Cancer50Pledge commits 50% of net profits to cancer research, permanently. Made in 2022, originally anchored to MyBetterRates, now generalizing to Smart Debt Coach and Market Drop Wins.
What is settled:
| Public annual reporting | Not established, not required. The current site is a development artifact only, to be made public on a permanent domain later |
| Charitable life insurance | Declined. Irrevocability and the ongoing premium commitment cost too much flexibility |
| A tax receipt for the purchaser | Confirmed impossible. CRA’s true donor rule, and a donation attached to a purchase is not a gift by the purchaser |
| Placement | Tertiary. Revealed after the sale, never before it |
The governing principle, unchanged: discoverable, never deployed. A survivor’s pledge used as a persuasion device reads as leveraging a personal event commercially. It does its work precisely to the degree it is not deployed.
The vehicle: notional now, convert when it matters
Section titled “The vehicle: notional now, convert when it matters”Track notionally. 50% of net profits, accrued on paper, held and invested as you see fit. Full flexibility retained.
Convert to a donor-advised fund when a distribution partner would value the irrevocable commitment. That is the trigger — a real partner conversation, not a date. GiveWise Foundation Canada: no minimum contribution, no fees under $25,000, immediate tax receipt on contribution, grants to any registered Canadian charity, and the fund carries whatever name you give it.
Name the estate as the backstop. All post-2023 financial gains are bonuses to beneficiaries; in the worst case they receive 50% more than they otherwise would. The will directs the balance if it has not been granted in your lifetime.
One refinement: open the vehicle early, fund it late
Section titled “One refinement: open the vehicle early, fund it late”If a partner asks and the answer is “I’ll set that up,” that is weaker than “here it is.”
A Giving Fund has no minimum and no fee under $25,000, so it can be opened now — named, dated, real — with a token contribution, and the accumulated balance transferred whenever the moment arrives.
All of the readiness, none of the irrevocability. Roughly fifteen minutes of setup, and it removes a weak moment from a conversation that may matter.
On defining net profits
Section titled “On defining net profits”Overstated in v1. Net profit is a standard accounting concept and your accountant already produces the figure. It is a one-line decision, not a definitional exercise: name the entity and name the line.
One edge case worth a sentence. If venture revenue flows through the same corporation that holds your investment portfolio, corporate net profit will include investment income — which would sweep your own portfolio returns into the pledge. Presumably not intended. Either specify the venture’s results rather than the corporation’s, or specify the line that excludes investment income. That is the whole of it.
The purchaser benefit
Section titled “The purchaser benefit”The advisor already deducts their purchase as a business expense. Anything beyond that must cost them nothing and require nothing.
1 — The charity acknowledgment letter (strongest)
Section titled “1 — The charity acknowledgment letter (strongest)”CRA blocks the receipt. It does not block acknowledgment. Tribute and honour gifts are standard practice at Canadian charities: a gift is made, and the charity sends a letter to the person honoured, naming them, with no receipt involved.
The advisor receives a letter from a cancer research organization saying a gift was made in their honour.
Why this beats a note from you: a message from you is a claim; a letter from a research foundation is evidence. It arrives separately, unprompted, from an unexpected sender — which is the structure of an actual delight moment rather than a marketing touch.
Practicalities: most large cancer charities have tribute flows that can be triggered in bulk. Do it annually or per cohort at the first meaningful grant, not per transaction — per transaction would feel mass-produced and would fail the Worth It test on your side too.
2 — Make the pledge an asset the advisor can use
Section titled “2 — Make the pledge an asset the advisor can use”Right now the pledge is your story. It could be theirs.
An advisor can honestly tell their own clients: “the framework I use comes from someone who gives half his profits to cancer research.” That is a Client First signal they get to borrow, in front of the people whose trust they are trying to earn.
Costs nothing, and it converts the pledge from your asset into a shared one — which is the flywheel the original tax-receipt idea was reaching for. It also gives the advisor a reason to mention where the framework came from, which is free attribution.
Requires only that the pledge be findable and clearly stated on a permanent domain, so someone who mentions it can point somewhere.
3 — Let contributors direct the grant
Section titled “3 — Let contributors direct the grant”When a meaningful grant is made, contributors advise among two or three cancer research recipients. Agency instead of a receipt, at zero cost, and it creates a natural reason to re-contact every past customer at a moment when the news is good.
4 — Cohort recognition
Section titled “4 — Cohort recognition”“The founding advisors of 2027 funded $X.” Named on the site with permission. Collective rather than individual, which avoids the transactional feel.
Certificates and badges — they compete with the advisor’s own brand in front of their clients, and they read as manufactured.
Anything before the purchase decision. Including option 2, if it becomes a selling point rather than something an advisor discovers and chooses to repeat.
The post-sale reveal
Section titled “The post-sale reveal”One line, in the onboarding email. Suggested wording:
One thing you didn’t know when you bought this. Half the net profit from everything I build goes to cancer research — a promise I made in 2022, during treatment, and kept. Your purchase added about $X. Nothing for you to do; I just thought you should know.
Three properties worth preserving: it arrives after they have paid, it states the fact without asking anything, and it does not dwell. “Nothing for you to do” is the line that stops it reading as a lead-in to something.
What to do, and when
Section titled “What to do, and when”Now, in fifteen minutes each ☐ Name the entity and the line for net profit tracking ☐ Open a named Giving Fund with a token contribution
Before launch ☐ Move the pledge page to a permanent domain and generalize it beyond MyBetterRates — with MBR abandoned, a reader currently finds a commitment tied to a venture that no longer operates ☐ Rewrite or retire the WealthCare 50 Alliance section, which offers partners access to MBR tools that no longer exist ☐ Add the reveal line to the onboarding sequence
At the first meaningful grant ☐ Trigger the acknowledgment letters ☐ Invite contributors to direct the recipient
When a distribution partner conversation becomes real ☐ Transfer the accrued balance into the fund
The two lines to hold
Section titled “The two lines to hold”Post-sale and unpromised. Every element above sits after the purchase decision. This has held through every version of this thinking and it is the one worth holding hardest.
Never construct a thematic link between cancer and market declines. The temptation exists — resilience, recovery, surviving downturns. It would be crass and it would be noticed. The connection is you, not the subject matter.