How we give back

At Mendicant, we believe that all organizations should commit to community impact.

Here are just a few ways that we, as a social-purpose enterprise, give back:

Support a range of causes in the communities we serve

We follow the Imagine Canada Caring Company benchmark of donating 1% of our pre-tax profits back to the communities we serve (most years, we give between 3% and 5%). We regularly support the Mukwashi Trust School in Zambia (a community-run educational innovator). Each year, instead of sending holiday gifts or cards to our clients, we make a donation to the school in support of its educational mission, exemplified by its motto of “prepare today for tomorrow.”

We also support a range of causes related to the areas in which we regularly practice, including housing and poverty relief, education, health and social services.

Community-minded suppliers

We ensure that our supply chain uses community-minded suppliers wherever possible, such as A-Way Express, Newcomer Kitchen, and Greensaver Energy.

We were one of the earliest supporters of CivicAction’s DiverseCity Fellows Initiative and were also an early Canadian adopter of The Prince’s Seeing is Believing program, under the leadership of the then-Prince of Wales, participating in community meetings between leading corporations and activists from some of Toronto’s at-risk communities.

For our international work, we audit the carbon footprint of our travel and purchase gold standard carbon offsets (to explore how to address your own organization’s footprint, visit myclimate.org).