CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE FOR CO-OPERATIVE EDUCATION

FINANCE CO-OP PROGRAMME

OUTRUNNING CANCER

Terry Fox Foundation Montréal, Québec

Prepared by:

Patrick Carpenter

WT Level W-1

December 03, 2012

 

CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE FOR CO-OPERATIVE EDUCATION

LETTER OF SUBMITTAL

Student's Name Patrick Carpenter ID # 6335217 Work-term Level 1 Work-site Visitor Darren Shore Title of Report Outrunning Cancer Date Submitted 14-Dec-12 Employer's Name Terry Fox Foundation

Address 1117 Ste. Catherine Ouest Montréal, Québec H3B 1H9

Telephone Number 514-499-9747 Department in which you worked Accounting Name of Supervisor Peter Sheremeta Telephone Number 514-499-9747

Acknowledgement of Assistance in the preparation of this report:

Student's Signature:

 

Table of Contents

LETTER OF SUBMITTAL………………………………………………………………………ii

INTRODUCTION…………………...……………………………………………………………1

DESCRIPTION OF WORK-TERM ACTIVITIES….……………………………………………3

Accounting………………………………………………………………………………...3

Leadership…………………………………………………………………………………6

Customer Service………………………………………………………………………….8

EVALUATION OF WORK-TERM………………….……….…………………………………11

APPENDICES……………………………………………………………………………………...

Appendix 1 – Deposit Process for a School

Appendix 2 – Constant Contact E-mail Marketing Example

 

INTRODUCTION

I have spent this past Fall Work-term at the Terry Fox Foundation. I was fortunate enough to be

there during their busiest time of the year. The Terry Fox Foundation is a Trust that began on

May 26th, 1988. It`s mission is “to maintain the vision and principles of Terry Fox while raising

money for cancer research through the annual Terry Fox Run, National School Run Day, as well

as via memoriam donations and planned giving.” In 1977, Terry Fox was diagnosed with bone

cancer in his right leg and had his leg amputated six inches above the knee. “While in hospital,

Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients that he decided to run across

Canada to raise money for cancer research. He called his journey the Marathon of Hope. Terry's

Marathon of Hope took place in 1980 with the simple objective of informing Canadians of the

importance of finding a cure for cancer. Terry was forced to end his run on September 1, 1980

when the cancer spread to his lungs.”1 The Terry Fox Foundation has risen over $600 million for

cancer research worldwide and has funded over 1,180 cancer research projects.2

This report has two purposes. The first purpose is to describe. The second is to evaluate. I will

describe the various activities I took part in over the course of the work-term, the purpose of

these activities within the Foundation, my role in these activities, and the tools used to carry

them out. I will then evaluate how the job related to my academic training, how it contributed to

my professional and personal development, the strengths and weaknesses of my training, and if

any changes should be made to my academic programme of Finance.3

                                                                                                                         1  http://www.terryfox.org/TerryFox/Mission_Statement.html  2  http://www.terryfox.org/TerryFox/What_sets_us_apart.html  3  http://co-­‐op.concordia.ca/currentco-­‐opstudents/documents/Howtowriteaworktermreport-­‐July2012-­‐Revisedmll.pdf  

 

I have divided the activities in which I participated into five categories: accounting, leadership,

customer service, raising awareness, and ad hoc tasks.

 

Accounting

The first category of activities I will discuss fall into the Accounting category. Participating in

and supervising the accounting of approximately $1 million in donations from 70 communities

and close to 289 schools across Québec was my first and foremost responsibility. The

Community Terry Fox Run took place on Sunday September 16th, and the National School Run

Day took place on Thursday September 27th. The funds raised by these runs were either sent to

our office by Purolator or Canada Post or brought to the office by the Provincial Director, Peter

Sheremeta, who had officially accepted the funds in a ceremony that the different schools would

invite him to.

I was given the responsibility of supervising the accounting of these funds from Communities

and Schools. The Montréal Terry Fox Foundation office has a constant flow of interns, mostly

from the Shadd and John F. Kennedy Business Centres here in Montréal, that spend on average 4

weeks there as part of a requirement they must meet in order to graduate. The interns are from

Secretarial/Administrative and Accounting programmes. They help out immensely with various

tasks around the office, but mostly with the accounting of all of the funds we received. I

supervised these interns as they processed the donations.

We used several tools to ensure the accounting was done correctly. I created two documents that

served as checklists the interns could follow as one of these tools (see Appendix 1). The

Foundation had what we called a “Count Sheet”, which was a Microsoft Excel Template and a

“Post-run Report” that we used to keep records of the donations.

The Foundation had a simple and effective process to ensure we accounted for everything

accurately. I would ask the interns to send me by e-mail (Microsoft Outlook e-mail:

 

relations@terryfoxrun.org) the Count Sheets they had completed so that I could keep them all

together in one folder on my computer. They would place the Post-run Reports and printed

versions of the Count Sheets in a small box with the label “To be deposited”. If they came

across any cheques that were missing a signature, date, or amount, had erroneous dates or

beneficiaries, or were post-dated, they would place these cheques in a box entitled “Bad

Cheques” and eventually send the cheques back to the donors explaining the mistake. I would

then look over the work they had done before preparing the deposit for the bank, which meant

filling out a page or several pages, depending on how many School and Community funds we

had received that day, in the Scotiabank bank book, collecting all of the cheques, cash, and coins

together, and bringing them to the Scotiabank on the corner of McGill and De Maisonneuve

streets in downtown Montréal. Once I had verified their work, I placed the documents in another

box labeled “To be Cash Tracked”. “Cash Track” is computer software that my colleagues used

to record all of the funds that the Montréal office received. I did not use Cash Track during my

stay. After one of my colleagues had entered the information from the Count Sheets and Post-

run Reports into Cash Track, they would file away the Post-run reports and Count Sheets

separately in their designated locations by date processed. The Community Terry Fox Runs also

came with Entry Forms and Pledge Sheets and the School Runs with just Pledge Sheets that we

placed in their designated boxes in preparation for data entry into the Exware Content

Management system for tax receipting purposes. I updated a Microsoft Excel file entitled

“Weekly Bank Deposit Summary” every Friday and sent it off by e-mail to a representative from

the Foundation’s National Office, who would then compile the summaries of every province and

send off a national summary to the Provincial Directors. At times, schools would ask that we

send them a fax confirming the receipt of the funds they had sent. I sent three such faxes. Some

 

schools and communities also asked that I call them when we received their donations. This

entire process was extremely effective in ensuring that we processed everything sent to us in an

efficient manner.

Another essential part of this process was making sure the amounts in Cash Track matched the

amounts being deposited in the Foundation’s bank account with Scotiabank because this was not

always the case. The Cash Track amounts did not, at times, match our bank book deposits for

one or a combination of several reasons: the date the amounts were entered in Cash Track did not

match the date the funds were deposited in the bank, miscalculations of cash and/or coins on our

part that were corrected by the bank teller at the bank, and the conversion of $USD to $CAD that

could only be done at the bank. I coordinated with Peter and another two colleagues to make

sure that Cash Track and our bank book balanced. This was one of the more fulfilling parts of

this work-term since balancing our records with those of the banks can require some

investigation but once everything balances, it feels great. For example, on one day we noticed

that the bank teller had counted $1000 less in toonies than Peter and another colleague had

counted. I had to communicate with the Bank Manager to verify that the bank did not have a

$1000 surplus that day. They did not. After some investigation, we came to the conclusion that

whoever was counting the toonies had entered 637 toonies on the Count Sheet instead of 137,

thus explaining the $1000 difference.

 

Leadership

As mentioned above, I was given the responsibility of being the interns’ Supervisor. I was able to

gain valuable leadership experience through this responsibility. Over the course of this work-

term, I managed, trained, and supervised a minimum of two interns and maximum of 5 on any

given week and 10 in total. These interns all came from varying backgrounds, countries, and

cultures such as China, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Pakistan. Not all of them

spoke English fluently and virtually none of them spoke French fluently so I learnt to use simple

instructions while training them as well as when correcting any errors they would make.

Peter was fantastic in training me on how to supervise and manage. He taught me to train them

simply using the checklists I had created for the deposit processes, the Count Sheet, and Post-run

Report, then to let them work on their own. I would occasionally sit or stand next to them to see

how everything was going and to answer any questions, but not too often. The Montréal office is

rather small and therefore offered a very close working environment, which was great since the

interns were never far away and they knew they could ask me any question any time. I would

then verify the work they had completed, offering them any feedback that was necessary. After

about a week, new interns would become very familiar with our accounting process.

I was able to experience everything that a Supervisor or Manager might experience when hiring

an intern. I used a schedule on Excel to keep track of when each intern was starting and

finishing their internships and what days and hours they were working. Interns would normally

work 9:30 am to 3:30 pm with either Monday or Friday off every week. I completed their

evaluation forms at the end of their internships. I modified our office’s School Post-run Report

to make it easier for the interns to fill out. I also created a document that future interns in my

 

position could refer to for “best practice”. I feel that this experience as a Supervisor will serve

me well in the future.

 

Customer Service

Similar to any other Charitable/Non-profit organization, the Terry Fox Foundation’s supporters

are, in a way, their customers and therefore must render customer service to them. I was able to

participate in customer service throughout my work-term in many ways.

I was given the responsibility of creating e-mails on a small business marketing service we had a

subscription to called Constant Contact. We used their e-mail marketing service. This was the

first time I had ever used such a service, so I had to quickly become familiar with it. Peter would

send me the content he desired in the e-mail then I would design the e-mail, get it approved by

him, and finally send the e-mail off to a list of e-mails Peter would give me for that specific e-

mail (see Appendix 2). I created and sent nine such e-mails to seven different lists to a minimum

of eight and maximum of 20,925 contacts. These e-mails were used to inform our supporters

about the online pledging system, changes of run locations, etc. and invite them to join the Terry

Fox Runs on Facebook, like the Foundation’s Facebook page, etc. I was also able to save our

office $1496 with Constant Contact. We had originally signed up with their e-mail marketing

service for 10,001 to 25,000 contacts paying $150 per month. However, since the office only

uses Constant Contact in September, I deleted all active contacts we had, since we already had a

record of them on our computers, and sent in the Foundation’s most recent Financial Statements

by e-mail to Constant Contact in order to obtain non-profit status. By deleting the contacts and

re-adding them back in September and with the non-profit status, the office now only pays $154

for 11 months and $150 in September instead of paying $150 per month all year.

There were many other ways I rendered customer service to our donors throughout the work-

term. I will not describe each in detail, but briefly mention most of them. I most definitely

 

enhanced my telephone skills. I contacted approximately 100 French and 10 English radio

stations all over Québec asking for the e-mail of the person in charge of putting a Public Service

Announcement on air. I would then send this person an e-mail containing a message asking for

their support by playing an attached Public Service Announcement. Close to 10 radio stations

replied back to say they would play the message and Peter asked me to prepare a thank you letter

that we could send to them. I called 37 Community Terry Fox Run organizers to verify that the

information we had concerning their runs on our website terryfox.org was correct. I was able to

inform my colleague of 7 necessary changes to be made on the website. This also gave me a

chance to familiarize myself with some of the run organizers and ensure that the preparations for

their runs were going smoothly. I called 20 English schools throughout Québec that had

participated in the 2011 National School Run Day but were not registered for the 2012 so as to

encourage them to participate. 11 extra schools that had collected $18,489.10 combined in 2011

were immediately registered as a result of these calls. I also contacted 32 individuals that had

volunteered for the 2011 Montréal Terry Fox Run to see if they wished to volunteer again in

2012. As a result, 12 extra volunteers helped out with various tasks at the run.

The office also received a fair amount of telephone calls and e-mails and I got the chance to

answer many of them, especially during the month of September since most of my colleagues

were busy with other duties. I assisted dozens of individuals with varying queries such as

wanting to know what to do with collected funds, how to log in on terryfox.org to access run

organizer resources and tools, needing their username and/or password to log in, having trouble

donating online, run organizers needing materials, schools desiring to register for 2012, needing

general information about a certain run, missing an automatically generated electronic tax receipt

 

after donating online, and schools desiring to register online. I was trained in order to assist any

individual that would call requiring such information.

Another responsibility I was given this work-term was sending cancer survivors that would

register with us a special red 2012 t-shirt, two English DVDs or one French DVD, and an

information booklet free of charge. Many of the Foundation’s most dedicated volunteers are

those that have survived cancer themselves. These survivors would then proudly wear their red

t-shirt for the run they participated in.

 

Evaluation