WWF earns Imagine Canada’s stamp of trust to ensure we honour yours

By Sara Oates, Vice President, Finance & Administration and Chief Financial Officer, WWF-Canada
Last May, Imagine Canada launched the first-ever national standards program for Canadian charities.  The big idea was an accreditation system that would shed light on the inner-workings of organizations to better safeguard donors’ rights.  Things like financial stewardship and transparency.  Things like how effective a charity’s board is, how well it manages its staff and volunteers, and the soundness of its fundraising practices.
WWF set out to meet those standards – not just to add a fancy new logo to our website (although it’s a badge we’re proud to wear!)—but rather because we knew, in making the grade for Imagine Canada, it’s really your test that we’d be passing.

You see, we know you don’t support us because of our excellent staff orientation and recruitment policies.  You don’t support us because you can easily find all our financial statements on our website.  Or because of the rigorous process our board uses to review our annual strategic plan.  What you care about are our impacts, the work we’re doing.
But what you expect, and what you deserve, is that we go about that work by holding ourselves to the highest possible standards.  Indeed, we couldn’t achieve our ambitions otherwise.  Nor could we earn and maintain your trust.
So, we’re taking a short moment to celebrate our new accreditation (Yay!).
And now, back to that important work of leading the recovery of the Grand Banks, conserving the waters where whales sing, mapping a future powered by renewable energy, conserving the Arctic’s most critical ice habitat and all the other important projects that you invest in for the future of people and nature.