Generosity, Solidarity, and a Community of Giving

Thanks to generosity, solidarity, and a community of giving people Clayoquot Biosphere Trust has now reached their $30,000 fundraising goal through their Giving Catalogue!

We are extremely grateful to the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust for initiating such a timely and essential resource for community fundraising through the Giving Catalogue. As a small non-profit organization, our funding was significantly impacted by the loss of both private and business donations due to the financial impacts caused by Covid-19. Because of this SIMRS was forced to cut back staff and programs, operating at minimal capacity in order to weather the storm. It was hard on our research organization to lose out on collecting valuable long-term data for programs such as our Bigg's Killer Whale Monitoring which has been operating for over 29 years.

"CBT recognized our needs, and the needs of our community and responded promptly. The Giving Catalogue allowed us to voice our need for support in a way that was more accessible for interested donors to find. The matching funds generously given by the Vancouver Foundation also helped incentivize potential donors by making them feel like even a small donation could go a long way!" - Karyssa, SIMRS Director of Operations

Rebecca Hurwitz, CBT Executive Director, responded to the Covid-19 outbreak and lack of in person meetings by initiating check-in zoom meetings once a week for the Executive Directors of a number of local non-profit organizations.

"I was really inspired by how the Giving Catalogue and CBT brought the community together in a difficult time. These meetings were a platform to voice our concerns and struggles related to the impacts of Covid-19 to others who could empathize, while also enabling others to provide support, creative solutions, or even just a simple morale boost.  At a time that was socially isolating, these meetings showed me that we truly are "All in this together" and that I had an incredible network of people supporting me and my organization every step of the way." - Karyssa

SIMRS wants to thank Clayoquot Biosphere Trust for their efforts in creating this fundraising opportunity, and thanks to all those who donated to the Giving Catalogue, as well as the Vancouver Foundation who generously provided matching funds for the donations. We'd also like to thank our community members and organizations that supported us in-kind, by lending a helping hand or a listening ear to us in a time of great need. SIMRS is able to continue our research, monitoring, and education initiatives towards marine conservation all because of you!

To learn more about this initiative, check out Clayoquot Biosphere’s blog post here.