It’s often been said that there are only two things in life that are guaranteed: death and taxes — but now there is a new guarantee. While there were weeks of uncertainty plaguing charities and Canadians, the Canada Revenue Agency published guidance last week to clarify that they will honour the extended 2024 charitable tax deadline that has not yet been passed in the House of Commons.

A recap

On December 30th, the Minister of Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs, Dominic LeBlanc, gave a somewhat unexpected and belated holiday gift to Canadians and charities. After advocacy efforts from key players (led by Imagine Canada, Cooperation Canada, and the Health Charities Coalition of Canada) called on the federal government to respond to the four-week Canada Post strike which halted all mailed donations from being received, the federal government announced that it “intends to amend the Income Tax Act to extend the deadline for making donations eligible for tax support in the 2024 tax year, until February 28, 2025.” The opportune word in that sentence is “intends” because at the time it was not a done deal and would need to be passed by Parliamentarians.

Flash forward to January 6th

A new curveball was thrown at Canadians. Justin Trudeau announced his intention to prorogue government and resign as Liberal Party of Canada leader and eventually as Prime Minister. At that point, questions began to swirl if Canadians should treat the February 28th extended deadline as final since the legislation had not yet passed.

Now that legislation has been drafted by the Department of Finance and the Canada Revenue Agency has published guidance, our CanadaHelps team is pleased. The extension justly gives Canadians whose donations are held up in the mail, the ability to have their gift eligible for a 2024 tax receipt. Plus, this is a unique opportunity for charities to raise additional funds for their cause.

In early January, I joined Sam Laprade from Gryphon Fundraising and David Kravinchuk from The Common Good Fundraising Agency in a webinar to hear what fundraisers could do in response to the tax deadline extension. A couple of key tips were highlighted:

Communicate with your donors.

On December 31st, when our team at CanadaHelps hit “send” on our planned email campaigns to the thousands of Canadians subscribed to our mailing list, we had some supporters reach out to share the news that the tax deadline was extended. However, our reminder that December 31st was the last day to get a guaranteed 2024 tax receipt was still accurate as the tax deadline extension was not yet official.

This reaction, however, does show that Canadians are paying attention, and many of your supporters likely have already heard the announcement. Now that it is finalized, it is an opportunity to share this great news to give supporters another opportunity to make a donation.

If your charity was negatively affected by the Canada Post strike, this is also an opportunity to share this with your supporters so they can learn how to help you. As we reported in our most recent Giving Report, 20% of Canadians who stopped giving to environmental charities ended their support because they doubted that their gift was effective. If you’re not communicating impact or sharing the challenges your charity is facing, the supporters who deeply care about your cause will never know. It’s important to invite them in and communicate transparently.

Plan a February campaign.

As a Virgo, my friends and family know that I live by the phrase “a failure to plan is a plan to fail.” Now that this guidance from the Canada Revenue Agency has been finalized, this is the opportune time to assemble a quick campaign to target donors who normally support your charity during the holiday season but missed you this year. It’s a reason to re-engage and build-out an email campaign similar to your holiday appeals, and give supporters another reason to fulfill that ask.

Nicole Danesi is the Senior Manager, Strategic Communications and Brand at CanadaHelps, Canada’s largest online donation and fundraising platform. Since 2000, more than 4.9 million Canadians have donated $3.4 billion to thousands of charities on CanadaHelps.