Pay It Forward Making services affordable. Rough mock-up, March 7, 2017 (click your mouse to advance to the next slide)

When going through divorce, professional services are generally very expensive.

For the sake of your children….

we’re making parenting coordination and other services affordable.

Basic Expectations of You We expect you to proportionally contribute to the agency an amount that enables us to provide a similar level of services to someone else in the future.

Alternatives Pay It Forward, PIF Private Professional Make monthly donations that your budget can accommodate. After your tax refund, the net cost will be about $212. Private Professional If a total of 6 hours are expended over the span of 5 months, the amount paid to a private practitioner will be about $2,400. Pay As You Go, PAYG By receiving services from CCPC, the cost of paying as you go drops to $1,500.

Specifics Make an initial donation of between $75 and $200 (only $37.50 or $100 after tax refund), then make ongoing donations of $10 per month. (NOTE that this example assumes that no more than 6 hours will be expended. The graphs above show the total payments of both parents in each of the three arrangements. If more than 6 hours are expended, additional donations at the initial donation rate are required. Detailed information is available on request.)

Example 1 If both parents are doing their best to learn and to change their behaviours, then 5 or 6 hours of intervention is sufficient. Compared to a private practice parenting coordinator that charges $400 per hour, the total cost of $2,400 drops to only $212 after tax refund. The charts shown above are based on 2 hours being expended the first month, 2 hours in the second month, 1 in the third, and half an hour in the fourth and fifth months. Note that the drop in the PIF line is due to the estimated tax refund.

Example 2 If a total of 20 hours is expended over the course of a year, with monthly time expended starting with 4 hours in the first month and diminishing to half an hour in each of the later months, the charts below show the substantial savings that can be realized by retaining a parenting coordinator through Canadian Co-Parenting Centres and participating in the Pay It Forward program.

Ongoing Donations If you think the ongoing donations of $10 per month are going to gradually add up to a big expense, you'll be surprised to know that even if the time expended is only 4 hours, you still come out ahead with the Pay If Forward program. The ongoing donations will never exceed the amount that would have been paid under the Pay As You Go method plus the opportunity cost of that extra amount paid. As the time expended increases, the savings becomes substantial. Note that for people who want to terminate their $10/month donation, a lump sum alternative option will be calculated and offered.

NOTE Note that the expected donations associated with the Pay It Forward program shown here are estimates and will vary depending on the agency's costs and the amount of revenue from other sources. The amount will also vary based on the family's income and other factors.

IMAGINE Did you know that according to Stats Canada, only about 20% of income tax filers make charitable donations? Imagine if everyone donated a portion of their incomes. Did you know that the median amount of donations each year is about $260, so half of the donors donate less than $22 per month and half of them donate more than that? Did you know that is only about 0.55% of the median income of lone-parent families in Alberta? Some people regularly donate 10% of their income. Imagine if everyone donated just 5%, or even just 2 or 3%. Did you know that in the Unites States, 38% of the population is eligible to donate blood, but only 3% do? Imagine if everyone that was eligible gave. Imagine if everyone that uses Wikipedia contributed in some way. The contributions required from each person would be miniscule. Imagine if every person that received assistance to break an addiction or get out of homelessness, contributed in a proportional way to helping others in similar circumstances. The resources available would grow substantially and become self sustaining, freeing up original contributors to replicate that model with another cause.

Pay It Forward In addition to enabling people to receive services in a way that is affordable, the Pay It Forward program hopes to foster in people a habit of being responsible, generous and collaborative, in all areas of their lives. More detailed information is available upon request.