Lift report
A grab bag of the dollars and cents of sport.
The 10th anniversary of Vancouver’s successful bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics is rapidly approaching on July 2.
One of the organizations created early in the bid phase, as a provincewide community relations strategy, was 2010 Legacies Now. According to CKPM-FM talk show host Alex Tsakumis, over the course of a decade, Legacies Now drew a combined quarter of a billion dollars from various ministry budgets and has yet to publish a line-by-line list of how the society spent all the money.
The organization, founded in 2001, was officially rebranded and renamed on November 6, 2012, as Lift Philanthropy Partners. It earlier transferred its sports and recreation programs to the BC Sport Agency Society, better known as ViaSport.
The new Lift name was announced a year after the Games and came into effect last November. “Lift provides strategic counsel, resources and expertise to not-for-profit organizations that target literacy and skills development, and sport and physical activity,” said the report.
“The society has received the majority of its funding from the Province of B.C. It is now working to diversify and expand its revenue streams.”
Lift had $15.53 million in assets and $7.76 million in liabilities for the year ended June 30, 2012. The revenue of $17.03 million was dwarfed by the $28.01 million in expenses, a nearly $11 million deficiency. The Aboriginal Youth Sports Legacy Fund of $1,155,649 was transferred on October 15, 2012, to ViaSport.
In 2004, the trust, called the Aboriginal Youth Endowment Fund, was $3,013,963. Its major beneficiary was the First Nations Snowboarding Team.
In its 2011 report, Legacies Now reported $1.5 million for “website development” and a $7 million grant to Decoda Literacy Solutions, whose chairwoman is ex-VANOC human resources executive vice-president Donna Wilson. Ex-VANOC chief financial officer John McLaughlin is on the board.
McLaughlin is the only former high-level Vancouver 2010 executive who has served in a senior International Olympic Committee position. Albeit temporary, as the financial adviser for the evaluation committees that vetted shortlisted bids for the 2018 Winter Games and 2020 Summer Games.
Funding sport
The 2010 Legacies Now offshoot ViaSport has supplanted Sport BC in many respects as the main funding umbrella for the province’s amateur sports scene. Sport BC moved into the Firstar Sport Centre at the BC Institute of Technology’s Sea Island aviation campus in Richmond in 2008. In late 2011, it sought an early exit from the 31,348 square feet of space effective March 31, 2013.
The lease had been scheduled to expire in 2020.
Annual lease payments totalled $315,058, according to statements for the June 1 Sport BC AGM. Sport BC agreed to forgo its original $52,439 deposit and pay $1 million via $20,833 monthly payments over four years to exit.
Sport BC registered a surplus of nearly $65,000 on $2.46 million in revenue for the latest fiscal year – a turnaround from a $255,670 loss on $3.6 million in revenue the year earlier.
Bieksa bucks
During the National Hockey League lockout (remember that?), Vancouver Canucks defenceman Kevin Bieksa got out into the community and showed up at rinks to sign autographs and even skate with youth players.
He also organized a charity game on October 17, 2012, between Bieksa’s Buddies and the University of BC Thunderbirds at Thunderbird Arena, which is better known for Davis Cup tennis these days than hockey.
According to documents released by UBC via Freedom of Information, a paid attendance of 4,711 (and 835 vehicles in the parkade) helped raise $88,297 to be split among three charities: Canuck Place Children’s Hospice, Canucks Family Education Centre and Canucks Autism Network.
The financial report showed $81,803 in gross ticket sales. UBC Athletics received $1,460 in donations, and the event cost $4,782 after a $5,964 rebate from UBC.
The biggest of the $9,724 in expenses was $3,613 for security provided by Limited Edition. •
