Decades of giving reframed for a modern Victoria
The Victoria Foundation is marking its 90th anniversary by putting local stories front and centre. A new video series, called 9 for 90, profiles donors, volunteers and charities that have helped build the foundation’s legacy and continue to channel support to the city’s social services, youth programs and cultural life.
The first instalment, “From Book Sale to Lasting Legacy,” follows Jim and Jackie Barker, former teachers whose grassroots fundraising evolved into a named fund at the foundation. What began as an annual community book sale — started to help families and students in need — was seeded into the Victoria Foundation as the Garden House Foundation Fund with an initial gift of $10,000. Over subsequent years, gifts and disbursements transformed the fund’s value and its capacity to support local literacy and animal welfare initiatives.
“By the time we finished, there was a community around the book sale that arrived every year to participate and it was wonderful,” Jackie says.
The foundation’s material notes that the seeded fund has grown to $252,000, with roughly $70,000 distributed to local literacy projects to date. The profile underscores how consistent, community-rooted giving can scale through pooled endowment management and professional stewardship.
Profiles opening a window on how small acts compound
The 9 for 90 series aims to showcase a cross-section of relationships between donors and local charities. The second video draws attention to the long-standing connection between the foundation and BGC South Vancouver Island, highlighting how early grants helped the organization offer after-school programs, skills training and community supports for children and youth.
Together, the videos are an exercise in place-making: they document how modest acts — a book sale, a one-off grant, an annual gift — feed into larger systems of support that stabilise community programs. For residents watching, the stories offer a practical view of how named funds and donor-advised gifts work through a community foundation to affect local causes.
- Seed gifts: How small initial donations can be pooled and invested to produce continuing grants.
- Stewardship: The role of volunteers and foundation staff in growing and distributing funds.
- Visibility: Storytelling as a way to connect donors, charities and the broader public.
Local consequences for charities and donors
For charities on Vancouver Island, the Victoria Foundation’s anniversary programming comes at a time when demand for services remains high and operating budgets are often stretched. The videos serve both as celebration and as a practical reminder that community foundations are vehicles for sustained funding — particularly important for literacy programs, youth services and animal welfare groups named in the series.
Organisations that partner with the Victoria Foundation can benefit from pooled investment strategies that aim to preserve capital while providing regular disbursements. That steadiness matters for organisations that plan multi-year programming rather than relying solely on one-off fundraisers.
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Initial gift to Garden House Foundation Fund | $10,000 |
| Value noted in film | $252,000 |
| Distributed to literacy projects | $70,000 |
Beyond numbers, the series documents volunteer energy — the book-sale community that came together annually and the staff and board relationships that stewarded growth. The foundation has also timed the video release ahead of a public anniversary event scheduled for Sept. 26, for which tickets are already on sale.
For residents considering how to direct charitable dollars, the series offers a local case study of donor impact: named funds can preserve a family or community initiative for generations, while grants address changing needs across Victoria. The foundation’s storytelling likewise seeks to remind the public that philanthropy in this city is often incremental, cumulative and deeply social — built by volunteers setting up tables, donors opening cheques and organisations translating funding into services.
As the city continues to grow and its social challenges evolve, the Victoria Foundation’s 90th year invites a neighbourhood conversation about sustaining supports that matter. The 9 for 90 videos provide a starting point for that conversation — showing how modest beginnings, when paired with structure and stewardship, can yield lasting benefit.
