25th Anniversary - Case for Support - Final

25th Anniversary - Case for Support - Final

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OVERVIEW

In 1995, brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger, along with a group of friends, set out with a mission to liberate child slaves. They couldn’t find an organization willing to work with them, so they started their own, and WE Charity was founded. They soon found that kicking down doors in factory raids wasn’t enough to end child labour. Instead, they needed to address the underlying poverty at the root of the issue. So the mission grew, empowering communities to break the cycle of poverty. WE Villages, WE Charity’s holistic five-pillar development model, was born. We first evolved from factory raids to facilitating sustainable impact. WE has come a long way over 25 years, but at its core, has always been guided by two fundamental principles: sustainability in everything we do, and building platforms that unlock the potential of people to create positive impact. In short, WE makes ‘doing good, doable’. Our international programs have enabled one million people to lift themselves out of poverty. Our domestic programs provide the next generation of youth a platform from which to drive massive social change. To keep those programs sustainable, and guard against economic downturns and shifting government priorities, we started our social enterprise, ME to WE, to act as a sustainable source of revenue for the charity. Looking to the future state of WE, our domestic programs will further utilize technology to increase the sustainability and scale of our outreach. We will leverage our existing platforms—WE Schools and WE Day—to enable educators and youth to have greater impact on the multitude of challenges they have identified as important, including the cause identified by youth as their number one concern: mental well-being. WE will also use its expertise as a pioneer and founder in the social enterprise space to develop programming that will boost the sector, as well as provide young people with job skills, financial literacy and entrepreneurship training. With the launch of an incubator and accelerator, WE will usher in the next generation of socially conscious business leaders and change agents. Internationally, WE will further expand the footprint of its WE Villages development model. At its core, the five-pillar WE Villages model is successful, even self-sustaining, with WE Charity exiting partner communities after five to seven years, leaving sustainable impact to continue exclusively under local leadership. With key pillars, including education, food security and health care, we have already expanded on our core offerings with larger infrastructure, capacity-building and training efforts at Baraka Hospital, WE College and the WE Agricultural Learning Centre. It is our vision for the future to ensure that these larger efforts also become self-sustaining, to partner with even more communities and to share our knowledge with local, grassroots non-profits in an open-source model to scale our learned best practices.

The following section is a brief overview of our achievements over the past 25 years. Following that is a look at where WE is headed in the future.

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OUR MISSION: A LOOK BACK

Domestic—WE Schools & WE Day

A key part of our mission to make doing good doable involves service learning resources and support for students and young people. Our vehicles for that effort have been the WE Schools program and WE Day events. WE Schools is designed to bring service learning to the classroom. With lessons on local and global issues weaved into the core curriculum, it also provides hands-on experiential learning by engaging students in practical problem-solving, volunteerism and activism on those issues. WE Schools resources are offered cost-free to educators. Through these initiatives, WE strives to educate young people about social and environmental challenges in their communities, countries, and around the world; inspire them to take action on those challenges; and empower them with the tools and resources to make positive social impact. In 2000, Statistics Canada found that 29 per cent of youth, ages 15 to 24, were volunteering. By 2013, that number jumped to 66 per cent of youth in the 15-19 age range. Although we do not have more recent numbers, anecdotal evidence points to a continued rise. When WE Charity started, young Canadians were the least likely age demographic in the county to volunteer; recent statistics show that young Canadians are now the age group most likely to volunteer. Today, the WE Schools program is deeply embedded in our education system. During the 2018-2019 school year, our programs and resources were deployed in over 18,400 schools globally. WE Schools has impacted, directly and indirectly, an estimated 5,309,800 youth around the globe. WE Day has inspired more than 1.5 million youth since the first event, held at a small Toronto stadium in 2007. It is noteworthy that WE Charity’s programs are deeply imbedded within the school system—78 per cent of schools in North America and the UK use WE resources as co-curricular or core-curricular. Over the past twenty-five years, WE programs have evolved from after-school service clubs, to full integration with course materials. For example, students learn computer science through WE programs by coding aps for non-profits. As another example, students learn biology through WE programs by testing water quality in their community.

The social value of that youth engagement has been staggering. Here’s a look at the social impact since we began our domestic programs:

$119 million fundraised

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• 6,165 local and global non-profits and causes supported • 46.4 million volunteer hours logged • 23.3 million pounds of food collected

From 2018 to 2019 alone, the equivalent monetary value of that volunteerism (based on the federally- recognized value of one hour of volunteer service), including food collected for foodbanks as well as funds raised, reached a total of $321 million (USD) in social value.

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For youth participants, the impact has been equally profound. Mission Measurement, a global firm that specializes in measuring the social impact of non-profits, has conducted studies on WE programs, including WE Schools. Mission Measurement found that, compared to their peers, youth involved in WE Schools programing are:

• 7.7x more likely to start a fundraising or activism campaign • 2.7x more likely to start a social enterprise or charity • 2.0x more likely to actively look for opportunities to volunteer • 1.8x more likely to feel responsible for creating positive social change • 1.8x more likely to be seen by peers and teachers as leaders • 2.0x more likely to have a deep understanding of global social issues

Over half of WE program alumni report in surveys that their participation in WE programs made them more confident in their ability to succeed academically, with 68 per cent having indicated that their participation helped them gain a better idea of what they wanted to do after graduation. And as they move into their adult lives, WE alumni remain engaged as active citizens, being 30 per cent more likely to vote regularly. We are proud to say that our domestic program is in fact creating a new generation of global changemakers. Now we are excited to scale that impact.

The vast majority of WE Schools service learning programs support local causes. The work of WE also reaches around the world.

International—WE Villages

WE Villages started with our team knocking down doors on factory raids to rescue children from bonded labour. Our first major donation of $150,000 went to establish Bal Ashram, a counselling centre for freed child slaves in India. This was our first and last rescue centre, once we realized we couldn’t facilitate physical freedom without presenting an alternative to child labour. We offered access to schooling, building classrooms that would form the first of our five pillars for sustainable development: Education. Now, thanks to our pillars of Water, Food Security, and Healthcare, our schools reach the most vulnerable children, who no longer skip class to collect clean water, since it flows freely from our handpumps on school campuses. Fewer children miss class due to illness, with better access to health care at our clinics. Students grow crops in school gardens with help from WE Charity’s agriculture team, a program that helps nourish minds and bodies. And thanks to the pillar of Opportunity, women entrepreneurs earn supplemental income for their families, with financial literacy training and culturally- appropriate business ventures aided by WE Charity. Now, our holistic model doesn’t just rescue children from slavery; it lifts entire families and whole communities from poverty, empowering them with alternatives to child labour. Core values form the basis of our approach: projects are sustainable, community-led, research-driven, and work to benefit underserved and rural populations. In WE Villages communities around the world: • more than one million people have access to clean water and healthcare • more than 200,000 children receive an education at WE Schools • 15 million meals have been enabled through our food security programs • more than 30,000 women entrepreneurs have been empowered through small business training and alternative income projects.

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For our WE Villages model, sustainable impact is our north star. Overseas, this has meant ensuring that once we leave our partner communities, local leaders continue to build on the impact of our programs for years to come. Five to seven years after the start of our partnerships, we want communities to take ownership over their progress. To date, WE has successfully transitioned out of 21 communities around the world , whose members continue to move forward on all key metrics after our departure: maternal health, education and gender equity in work outside the home. Independent studies conducted after WE exits show the health and vitality of these independent communities.

Spotlight: Salabwek

Five years after WE Charity transitioned out of Salabwek, in rural Kenya, the community underwent an independent third-party study by Mission Measurement. Here are the highlights:

• 20 new buildings constructed at the primary school • 50% primary school graduation rate for girls, up from 27% • 80 % increase in the number of households with access to clean water • 25% increase in children with access to nutritious food • 98% increase in access to health care

The gracious contributions and support of our global community make what we do possible. Now, it’s time to celebrate that success, build on it and share best practices on an open-source platform.

ME to WE Social Enterprise

ME to WE Social Enterprise started as a means to empower Maasai communities in Kenya. We sought to get Maasai goods to a wider market and support the Kenyan artisans who hand-bead beautiful jewellery in traditional designs. Now, 1,400 women entrepreneurs in Kenya earn an average of four times more than their previous wages beading for ME to WE’s Artisans line with products sold in over 12,000 retail stores . The majority of ME to WE’s net profits are donated back to WE Charity to offset the organization’s admin rate—a total of $20 million since the enterprise launched in 2007. ME to WE’s commitment is a minimum donation of 50 percent of its annual net profits to WE Charity. However, financial audits from the previous five years show an average of 90 percent of its net profits donated, with the balance invested to grow the mission through the funding of projects such as coffee coops in WE Charity partner communities. This revenue from ME to WE supports the charity’s hard-to-fund projects, like administrative tasks, and makes room to experiment and grow in order to create the most sustainable impact. ME to WE has allowed WE Charity to redefine certain aspects of the traditional charitable model. WE Charity has never spent precious dollars on traditional fundraising mechanisms such as street canvassers, phone bank systems, or Sunday morning commercials. Instead, consumers purchase ME to

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WE products across thousands of partner retail locations, and learn about the social mission in-store. As a result of this unique way to grow our brand, our charity’s administration rate, at 10 per cent, is well below the industry average. We can proudly tell our donors and partner communities that 90 cents on every dollar donated to WE Charity goes directly to support its projects. ME to WE also allows us to invest in unique programs to further the social mission. For example, ME to WE Trips have given over 40,000 of our stakeholders the chance to visit those very same projects, providing a level of transparency that connects them directly to the communities and lives changed through their generous support. ME to WE has since expanded into artisans programs in Ecuador, as well as consumables in the form of chocolate and coffee. In the years after the launch of these partnerships, thousands of jobs are created, in agriculture (ME to WE’s Fair Trade chocolate), hospitality and tourism (with ME to WE Trips), and of course, the artisan entrepreneurs. WE has successfully built and grown one of Canada’s largest social enterprises, establishing a strong track record of impact measurement while informally providing guidance to other social purpose organizations. After more than a decade as an industry leader in the social innovation sector, WE is ready to share its learnings and to support the next generation of socially conscious business leaders.

GROWING OUR MISSION: A LOOK AHEAD

Over the last 25 years we have been focused on researching and testing development models to lift people out of poverty. We have also been working to empower the next generation of change-makers to take action on the causes they’re most passionate about. As we look to the future, WE will leverage our social transformation platform (a series of systems and service learning programs that have been honed and tested over the last two decades) to help others achieve maximum social impact that is scalable, self-replicating, and most importantly, sustainable.

• Domestically, our platform will continue providing youth with the tools, technology, resources and partnerships they need to create positive change in our ever-evolving world.

• On the international front, WE will mentor other local actors, charities and NGOs as they seek to improve outcomes for their constituents, while also continuing to empower our partner communities by investing in several key, high ROI projects in agriculture, health and education, which are poised to create sustainable change in the region. • Finally, while social enterprise as a model is inherently sustainable, WE will pay it forward to the next generation of social entrepreneurs, by providing them with the training, mentorship and world class programming they need to launch, grow and scale their social enterprises. These goals are rooted in a desire to create long-term sustainable solutions for the future, where doing good can continue to be a part of our everyday life.

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Domestic—WE Schools & WE Day

The future of WE’s domestic programming is increased scalability and impact delivered through digital technology, building upon existing WE Schools and WE Day platforms to address challenges that youth and educators identify as their top priorities, starting with mental well-being. WE Schools has created systemic change in the education system, and in the outlook of youth. Tackling environmental issues or volunteering at the local food bank is no longer the exception for students, but the norm for young citizens. WE helped make it cool to care. So where do we go from here? Firstly, WE will leverage partnerships and the tools of new technology to deliver our programs more sustainably, and to scale in order to empower even more people to create positive impact. For example, AP with WE Service, delivered in partnership with the College Board, brings service learning into the curriculum for formal credit, allow WE to cost-effectively scale the reach of our programming. The AP partnership alone has empowered us to engage youth and educators in 22,000 high schools in all 50 US states and dozens of countries around the world. To ensure that engagement growth remains sustainable, WE must employ new channels to deliver our programs and resources, relying more on digital platforms. Since the launch of WE Day 12 years ago, online communication has drastically evolved. Today’s youth need to be engaged through different platforms than previous generations, as we move from live WE Days to more online WE Day Connect events, it will empower us to reach and inspire more youth around the world, especially in rural and remote communities. Part of WE’s growth and impact over the last 25 years, including moving the needle on indicators like youth volunteer rates, is due to our platform approach. WE offers youth a solid foundation from which to tackle the issues they care about, and to amplify their voices. Our belief has always been to listen to those voices in the creation of our programming. Youth tell us what they need, and we work to support them. Going forward, WE will leverage its existing programs of WE Schools and WE Day to create more focused platforms that empower participants to tackle specific local and global challenges. Over the past few years, youth have overwhelmingly told us that their number one issue of concern is to make an impact on mental health for themselves, classmates, family and community. One in five people experience mental health concerns, and of those, 70 per cent first experience them during adolescence. Mental health is a critical issue, especially for young people. In response, we launched WE Well-being. Utilizing the distribution and engagement channels already established with WE Schools and WE Day, WE Well-being will provide youth with educational tools and resources to promote their own positive well-being and the well-being of their friends, families and communities. Through partnerships with groups such as CAMH, Kids Help Phone, Mental Health America, JED Foundation, Sunnybrook Hospital, and our lead research partner UBC, WE works in collaboration with leading mental health professionals to built evidence-based prevention and promotion strategies through K-12 curriculum resources . The end goal is the development of a standardized national mental health curriculum and support program. Once these goals are achieved, we will work on building new focused platforms to support educators and youth in having impact on other challenges that are top priority for them.

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International—WE Villages

The future of WE’s international programming will see sustainable projects anchored, with improved progress on key impact metrics in partner countries. WE Villages will work to increase the efficiency rate of its exit transitions, leaving communities self-sustaining in fewer years’ time. WE will also work more closely with local, grassroots non-profits to build capacity on the ground and invest more in its own capacity-building infrastructure. The future focus of WE Villages is sharing our learnings with others, in more sustainable, scalable impact. With our community partners making such incredible progress, our next step is open-source knowledge sharing, with a focus on training. WE Villages will engage the next generation to build human capital in our partner communities. The core five pillars of WE Villages are economically self-sustaining through a mix of government partnerships (for example, government-funded teacher salaries), and the alternative income programs empowering the local community financially. In order to assist with this economic sustainability and increase the ability to exit from communities, WE Charity is making a strategic investment in large-scale farm production in WE Village communities. Many of our partner communities are located in rural regions where sustenance farming with a few cash crops is the most common source of income, which is why WE Villages invests in agricultural training programs. After decades developing and refining our own Food Security pillar, we are sharing best practices directly with community farmers and schools. Ultimately, these programs nourish families and improve the health and welfare of whole communities, increasing food security across regions and ensuring continued success for our partner communities after WE Charity exits. In the future, we will expand on the below projects and build new ones in order to ensure that the impact is sustainable. Agricultural Training

Oleleshwa Farm

A key investment in our Food pillar is the development of Kenya’s Oleleshwa Farm. In addition to growing food for students in our high schools and college, Oleleshwa hosts members from our partner communities for regular agricultural and food security training.

WE Villages also facilitates school and community farms throughout the region to share learnings with students and families. Here’s a look at our Kenya impacts to date:

• 14 school demonstration gardens planted • 8 school farms established • 6,000 kg of fresh produce produced on 3 community farms in 2017 alone • 125 independent trainings impacting over 12,000 people through our community farms We are replicating the success of Oleleshwa Farm by expanding its reach in Kenya, and also adding similar programs in other geographic regions.

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WE Agricultural Learning Centre

In Ecuador, many families have been farming cacao for generations, in many cases without formal training. Cocoa is a finicky crop, and it often fails, leaving farmers no choice but to destroy their fields and start over. But Ecuador’s national cacao crop variety is also internationally-renowned. With proper training, these farmers will gain access to a wider market, boosting local economies and improving the health and welfare of communities. The WE Agricultural Learning Centre in Ecuador’s Amazon will expand to provide additional modern classroom facilities, expert local instructors, and a 170-acre demonstration field where farmers receive practice plants to care for over a sustained period, under supervision from WE Villages instructors. WE Villages will continue to expand on the success of our Food pillar with the development of new farms, the installation of new school gardens and more training groups. One specific project to note is an expansion into Ethiopia with a community farm whose cash crops will make the fields fully sustainable—50 per cent of proceeds will be reinvested in the farm, while the other 50 per cent will fund WE Villages community projects. Of course, the farm will be a food source, but will also keep projects funded for all five pillars, creating truly sustainable impact. Young people in Narok County, Kenya, now have a clear path to fulfil their dreams and give back to their communities through their career choices. Children in regions that once lacked proper school facilities can complete their entire educational tenure with WE, attending WE Villages primary schools, through to our award-winning Kisaruni Group of Schools and into postsecondary studies at WE College, which will empower young people in Kenya to achieve their career aspirations and act as positive role models for future generations. These graduates will move development forward as WE speeds up its transition time, exiting out of self-sustaining communities. They will become the engineers who design water projects, the teachers who build educational infrastructure and the business leaders who provide employment. Feeding the next cohort of young minds is truly sustainable impact. In rural Kenya, the cost of postsecondary studies can be prohibitive for impoverished families in marginalized areas. WE College is excited to grant scholarships through a needs-blind application process and offer full tuition for every admitted student. In response to student interest and market demand, the college started with the School of Tourism and School of Nursing. Looking to the future, we are excited to expand the college with programs in Technical Studies, Education, Medicine, Public Health, Civil Engineering, and Business & IT. Every program includes an internship placement, customized leadership courses, and integration with the computer lab and technology hub so students will graduate job-ready. WE College will train the next generation of medical experts, engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs who will build and scale positive impact in their own communities. Each area of study was carefully selected to ensure that graduates can pursue a meaningful career in their home villages, support their families and contribute to local economies. Most students were the first in their families to go to high school. Within a single generation, young leaders are lifting themselves and their families from poverty with a college diploma. In regions that are typically recipients of aid, WE College graduates will be empowered to lead their own change. WE College

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WE College will also welcome local non-profit groups and community leaders to learn from its education model, and all five pillars of sustainable development, sharing best practices in order to build capacity. WE will also publish open-source materials as resources, empowering even more people in the sector and in the community to lead their own positive change.

WE Social Entrepreneurship

When WE launched its social enterprise, ME to WE, the sector was small. ME to WE was a game-changer for WE Charity, providing employment in WE Villages partner communities, stable revenue for the charity, and growth for the brand without reliance on costly traditional fundraising practices. WE seeks to grow the social enterprise sector, empower the next generation of young change agents, and increase the number of skilled graduates with enhanced financial literacy and job-ready skills. With The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), WE has identified gaps in the social enterprise space. We found that Canada’s sector currently lacks the understanding, financing, mentors and visible success stories required to thrive, and to foster the next generation of social entrepreneurs. While there are ongoing government efforts to enhance the environment for social enterprise, social entrepreneurship is not yet well understood or supported, and the pipeline is underdeveloped. WE is in a unique position to help address these barriers. With help from our generous supporters and tiered financial investment, WE will incubate social innovation, encourage a viable career path and facilitate much needed support to young social entrepreneurs at all stages of development, from all backgrounds and all corners of the country. With RBC as our founding partner, WE will help youth-led social enterprises grow and scale and equip young people with career skills through two key programs. In a school program for grades 9-12, the under-25 cohort will gain an introduction and overview of the social enterprise sector, with in-class curriculum, virtual trainings, mentorship, and national contests, creating a culture of awareness and excitement around social innovation, as well as teaching vital skills including financial literacy, networking, conflict management and negotiation. Once these students graduate high school, they can pursue careers in social enterprise, go to university with enhanced skills, or enter the job market equipped with vital business training and an enhanced understanding of responsible corporate citizenship. The outcome will be increased social awareness among future consumers and business leaders, who will in turn change the landscapes in their chosen professions. Support under-25 Graduates can also enter our WE accelerator for under-35 (see below). The under-25 program creates a sustainable feeder program for the under-35 accelerator to build the next generation of social entrepreneurs. Both programs will give priority access to enterprises led by marginalized and vulnerable populations, such as women, new immigrants and Indigenous Peoples, creating more employment opportunities and skills training for these groups.

Support under-35

As WE Charity reaches its 25 th anniversary, many graduates from its programs are seeking more advanced ways to continue social action. Targeting the under 35-year-old age group, WE will create an incubator, offering in-house technical capacity to help scale investor-ready social enterprises and

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transform their co-founders into the next generation of industry leaders across Canada. Participants will have access to business services, including marketing and finance mentorship and access to capital, as well as impact services, including social impact frameworks. This program will also focus on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Participants will create sustainable businesses that have meaningful and sustainable progress towards achieving the SDGs by 2030. The two programs combined are expected to grow Canada’s social enterprise sector by 15 per cent, according to BCG projections, as well as mentor young entrepreneurs and ready them for the job market to move the needle on positive social change. Social enterprise is a powerful nexus between philanthropy and business that can help drive positive change in society through sustainable impact. Creating a cadre of new social enterprises and young socially responsible business leaders will have a transformational impact in Canada’s economy and society. A BCG study measured the potential impact of WE’s new social enterprise programs. It concluded that the successful launch of these projects would result in: • 7,000 schools and groups in Canada building social entrepreneurship skills, with plans for US expansion • 5,000 incremental social enterprises created over the next 15 years • 15,000 jobs created at newly established social enterprises • $700 million to $1 billion in social impact value created, considering the enhanced skillset of graduating youth

Conclusion

Our mission at WE is to make doing good, doable. That remains the core philosophy and the drive behind all of our programs, the ones currently succeeding and the ones in early stages. Building on foundational projects honed over the last 25 years, we will continue to grow our existing programs, to evolve with new projects, and to make all of our work fully sustainable. We hope you will join us as WE continues on its journey of sustainable impact.