1997 Award Recipients

Mr. Donald K. Johnson

Mr. Donald K. Johnson, Vice-Chairman of Nesbitt-Burns, on of Canada's leading investment firms, is the recipient of the 1997 Outstanding Volunteer Award.

During 1995 and 1996, Mr. Johnson chaired a $12 million capital campaign to create a new home for the National Ballet of Canada. During the Campaign, he became aware that many Canadian charities were struggling unsuccessfully to increase donations sufficiently to offset reductions in Government support. He became convinced that private donations could be increased with only a modest loss of government revenue, if gifts of appreciated capital property were exempted from capital gains tax. He marshalled research, recruited allies from every part of the charitable sector, and set out on a two year blitz of meetings, letters, faxes and phone calls.

His leadership in this effort led to an announcement in the February 1997 Federal budget, reducing the capital gains tax by one-half on gifts of publicly-traded securities. The Canadian Centre for Philanthropy has estimated that this single measure could result in an additional $200 million in annual donations by Canadians.

In addition to his work on behalf o the National Ballet where he continues to serve as a Board member, Mr. Johnson serves on the governing boards of the Council for Business and Arts in Canada, and the Eye Research Institute of Canada. He is is a part member of the Board of the Bishop Strachan Scholl Foundation, and serves on both the Advisory Board and the fund raising Campaign Steering Committee for the Richard Ivey School of Business of Western Ontario.

Don Johnson's volunteer leadership has strengthened the entire charitable sector in Canada.