Canadian celebrities and athletes lend star power to charities

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Generous celebrities can make a big difference to Canadian charities, not just through donations but also by lending their profile to fundraising efforts.

“If celebrities are making major gifts, it can be especially impactful if it’s a formal matching gift that encourages matching gifts from other people,” says Toronto-based Jessie Harding, senior research consultant with KCI, a fundraising consultancy with offices across Canada.

In particular, Ryan Reynolds has made a name for himself in both donations and fundraising activities, Harding says. He donates to various causes and has partnered with SickKids Foundation, lending his name and acting talent to their holiday sweater fundraising campaign, which has raised more than $2.2 million in four years.

Reynolds and his wife, Blake Lively, give to charities on both sides of the border. Harding says her research team is aware of at least $2 million donated since 2020 to Food Banks Canada, the at-risk youth charity Covenant House in Toronto and Vancouver, and St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.

In 2022 Reynolds and Blake gave $500,000 to the charity Water First, which will help train Indigenous young adults to operate water treatment plants and become water science technicians.

Singer, songwriter and producer Abel Tesfaye, also known as The Weeknd, was honoured with the 2022 Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award for social activism. In recent years, his gifts have gone to global and international social causes. But in 2020 he focused on his hometown, giving $500,000 to the Scarborough Health Network to help with COVID-19 relief. “I was raised in Scarborough and felt it was important to give back to the community that raised me during the hard times of this pandemic,” he said.

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Tesfaye also gave $30,000 that year to the University of Toronto’s Ethiopian studies program. He had donated $50,000 to the Ethiopian program in 2016 as well.

Prominent Canadian celebrities including Michael J. Fox and Avril Lavigne have created foundations for their philanthropy, says Harding. Both have donated to causes related to their own health struggles.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation is known in Canada and the United States for raising US$1.75 billion for research into Parkinson’s disease. Edmonton-born Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at age 29 and established his foundation in 2000 to search for a cure for the debilitating disease. In April the foundation announced that it would be including Canadian participants in its Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative, a massive study of volunteers aimed at determining how the illness starts and progresses and how it might be stopped.

Lavigne has established a foundation that gives to various health charities but particularly to organizations combatting Lyme disease, an illness she has experienced herself.

Canadian celebrities charity — Notable givers among Canadian musicians, athletes and actors, clockwise from top left: Simu Liu, Michael J. Fox, the Weeknd, P.K. Subban, Ryan Reynolds and Avril Lavigne.

Singer Shania Twain’s Shania Kids Can operates separate charities in the U.S. and Canada. It funds a school program that supports disadvantaged children. Twain donated $150,000 to Shania Kids Can at the end of her Las Vegas residency in 2022. Twain grew up poor herself in Timmins, Ont., and began her singing career as a child hoping to help her family.

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Harding says actor Simu Liu is also actively raising charitable donations. The star of Barbie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Kim’s Convenience launched a basketball fundraising venture in 2019. The most recent game in Toronto in July featured Liu and NBA star Jeremy Lin playing to raise funds for the Canadian Chinese Youth Athletic Association and the Jeremy Lin Foundation, which supports disadvantaged and cross-racial youth. Liu has also raised funds for Ronald McDonald House Charities in Canada and is a UNICEF ambassador.

Hockey players step up

Canada’s hockey stars are known for big donations. Harding says top players often end up in the U.S. and do their charitable giving where they work, rather than where they came from. But there are notable exceptions.

Calgary Flames star Nazem Kadri donated $1 million in 2022 to a surgical centre in his hometown of London, Ont. The 33-year-old centre also established the Nazem Kadri Foundation, which supports mental health and education causes in Canada.

Former NHLer and Toronto native P.K. Subban is another generator of charitable funds, says Harding. In 2015, when he was playing for Montreal, Subban committed to raising $10 million in seven years for the Montreal Children’s Hospital (shortly after that Subban was traded to Nashville). By January 2023 he had raised $6.3 million and announced he would raise the balance of the $10 million by 2025. The hospital said in a release he is “considering continuing his partnership with the hospital for the long term.”

Being associated with a famous name can make a big difference for a charity, particularly a small one.

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When he died in August, famed musician Robbie Robertson’s family asked for donations to Six Nations of the Grand River for its Woodland Cultural Centre. By early September the centre had received more than $50,000 in Robertson’s name and a big jump in its public profile. Robertson’s mother was born on Six Nations and the composer, guitarist and singer spent time there growing up. “It really highlighted that Woodland exists. I think that not everybody knew that we were here,” Heather George, executive director of the centre, told CBC.

And that’s the superpower of celebrity philanthropy.

“I would say the fundraising market is so competitive that any Canadian charity or nonprofit cause would welcome anything that gets their message out,” Harding says, “and helps break through the noise.”