The 100 Men That Give A Damn concept is happening throughout North America with chapters in dozens of cities. The original meeting happened in Halifax, NS in 2014. The Airdrie chapter started when a handful of local gentleman heard about the idea and wanted to be apart of it. A few group texts and informal meetings later and the first meeting was set.

The Airdrie version consists of the following Board. These men include:

• Jack Lumley - Co-chair
• Keith Wilkinson - Co-chair*
• Tyson Leslie - Treasurer
• David Bowman - Membership Coordinator
• Todd Cunningham - Facebook Coordinator
• Jason Bostick - Webmaster
• Darcy Forbes - Sponsorship Coordinator
• Derrick Greenwood - Ambassador and Presenter Liaison
• Jeremy Winterton - Ambassador

* Keith passed away in January 2023. As a co-founder, he will forever have a spot on our board.

The 100 men group is not an exclusive club. We are always welcoming new members and anyone can sign up. We even welcome people to come sit in on a meeting as a guest without paying so you can see what we're all about (you just won't get a vote or entered into the door prizes).

Yep! We will collect and pool the money but donation receipts are handled by the winning charity. The reason we collect personal information when you sign up is to allow our charities to provide proper donation receipts.

The tax receipt will be issued in the name you signed up with. It does not matter what name your donation comes in under. If you'd like the tax receipt to use a different name than the one you registered with, please let us know at [email protected]

Charities nominations are outlined on this page here. Three charities will be randomly chosen two weeks prior to each quarterly meeting. Each charity will be notified and be asked to make a short presentation (up to 7 minutes) at the quarterly meeting.

Any charity may only present up to twice a year, in non-consecutive quarters. A charity that has been selected to receive the quarterly donation will not be able to submit their name again until after a year has passed. Any charity that is not drawn for participation that quarter must be re-nominated to be included again.

No. Charities are to only be nominated by registered, paying members of 100 Airdrie Men Who Give A Damn. However, charities are welcome to Like our Facebook page and introduce themselves to our members there. Many members are eager to learn of new charitable efforts and would be able to make a nomination on your behalf.

For ease of Administration and to properly stage the venue, it is highly encouraged that funds be sent (via e-transfer or online credit card payment) to the 100 Airdrie Men account at least two weeks before the event. Members are requested to make every effort to attend the presentations and the Charities will be encouraged to bring pamphlets so that interested people have the ability to donate outside of our process.

100 Airdrie Men has a treasurer and a dedicated account. Funds are held in an account until they are awarded to charity. Three board members have signing authority and two must sign before any withdrawals can be made.

100% of the funds are donated. There are no admin fees and all setup fees thus far have been covered in-kind.

The payment process (e-transfer payments, credit card options, etc) is outlined here: https://theairdrie100.com/join/donate/.

The most common method is e-transfer. Funds can be e-transferred to [email protected] and using the password airdrie100.

Credit card payments are also available. However, because the payment processor takes a fee (and because we do not have any Admin fees and are 100% volunteer) we must charge extra to cover those costs (2.9% + $0.30). Credit card payments are $103.20 for a single meeting and $412.26 for a year’s worth of meetings (1 per quarter). We also offer 'subscription payments' where your credit card can be automatically deducted each quarter.

The payment process is outlined here: https://theairdrie100.com/join/donate/.

Sure! Annual payments are gladly accepted. Please follow the same e-transfer (or credit card) process as you normally would for a quarterly payment.

No. Registration is only required once and is saved in our database. You would only need to register again if something changes (mailing address, for example).

The registration info is used for two purposes:

• send out quarterly meeting reminders
• send out tax receipts from successful registered charities

While we appreciate that not everyone can donate this amount, we are not currently allowing team donations. The tax receipt process becomes difficult with team entries, as does member voting. This may be revisited in the future.

Yes! We're always trying to spread the word beyond our own friends and colleagues. Sharing our social media posts, word-of-mouth encouragement to neighbours and colleagues, nominating charities, and any sort of in-kind support is welcome and helps us grow our group. Often our charities are looking for volunteer support as much as they are financial support. Considering volunteer opportunities is a huge help for our charities.

Of course you are free to donate your hard-earned money as you see fit. One of the benefits of the 100 Men Who Give A Damn project is the ability to give large amounts at one time. This provides major boosts to these organizations, allows for publicity, profile, and recognition of their work, and it allows you to be a part of a larger effort. There are also communal and social benefits from being part of a larger group that meets with a common purpose.

Update!
As we sorted through the challenges of COVID, we experimented with online voting. This has been very well-received and is now the standard for all meetings. As long as you have registered with a valid email address and are paid up for that meeting, you will receive a voting link that lets you vote instantly from anywhere with an internet connection.

Emails are usually sent roughly 30 minutes before the presentation and close shortly after. It will come from an account called OpaVote.

We feel pretty strongly that there are important benefits to be had by attending beyond donating. There is camaraderie, newfound awareness of charity organizations and their missions, and a tangible and rewarding feeling you get when a winner is announced. It is hard to explain but those who have been to a previous meeting will understand.

However, we also realize that everyone has busy lives and competing priorities. If you are unable to make it, you have a couple of options.

Please note that the setup and sign-in on the day of each meeting can be hectic. The more you can arrange ahead of the meeting, the easier it is on the organizers. For this and other reasons, Board members are not able to be proxies.

The way our voting software works, once we input our voter emails and click 'Publish', the email goes out with the online voting link. For every person that signs up after that, voting emails are no long auto-generated. We need to generate a unique voting code and then manually send a personal email with the code, a voting link, and brief instructions.

We tend to get payments throughout the day of a meeting and several walk-ins / last minute sign-ups and doing this manual process while we're managing check-in and setup can be challenging. So, in order to try and minimize the manual emails, we hold off on sending the voting email until close to the start of the meeting (shortly before 7pm). This hopefully also encourages those at the meeting to wait for the presentations before they vote.

We realize that this smaller voting window makes it difficult for those wanting to vote remotely but hope that you understand why we manage it this way.

We welcome all manner of presentations, however, any audio/visual requirements should be cleared and arranged with the venue for that meeting. Unfortunately, the Airdrie 100 organizers are not currently able to provide A/V equipment or to make those arrangements on your behalf.

When in doubt - keep it simple. The message is more important than the medium.

Yes.

The suggestion to pay two weeks in advance helps us with our planning, with our host location's planning, and getting names organized to provide for charitable receipts. It helps make the evening go more smoothly.

However, we always have last minute signups and people who pay at the door. That is totally fine. We will certainly not turn you away - the more for our charities the better! It just makes our lives easier if we have the payments in advance.

Yes.

100 Men is not a maximum threshold. In fact, we'd like it to be a minimum threshold. The more that show up, the more money we get to give away.

That is a good thought and one we had previously. However, there are logistical problems with it. For example, if your $100 donation got saved for a future meeting, do you get your vote at this meeting or a future one? What about the tax receipts? It got too messy so we thought we'd keep it simple and hope we reach at least 100 each and every meeting.

We welcome our members' input and suggestions and are happy to take the best ones under advisement. Post on our Facebook page or send us an email.

If you'd like to participate in a women's group that has less casual swearing in the title, check out the wonderful 100womenwhocareairdrie.com. Please share it with friends / spouses / siblings / neighbours that might be interested.