Leadership & Legacy Gifts

Getting started

There are several ways to plan a legacy gift. The two most commonly planned gifts are bequests and life insurance policies:

Bequest

A bequest is a percentage of your estate or a specified dollar amount which is gifted to the EAC through your will. Although the gift is planned by you when you prepare your will, it does not come into effect for the EAC until you have died. Gifts may be unrestricted or designated for a particular issue that is of special interest to you.

A sample bequest for unrestricted use may read: 

To pay to the Ecology Action Centre ___ percentage share of my estate (or a sum of $__) to be used for such purposes of the Charity as its Board of Directors may from time to time determine; and I declare that the receipt of the Treasurer of the Ecology Action Centre or other person properly authorized to give receipts shall be sufficient discharge for the same. 

Life Insurance Policy 

The gift of an insurance policy can take place by transferring the ownership of a paid policy or purchasing a new policy naming the EAC as either the owner or as the beneficiary. When you transfer ownership of an existing policy to us, you receive a tax credit for the cash surrender value.

More ways to give

In addition to a bequest in your will or the gift of a life insurance policy, we’d be happy to talk with you about other ways to give: 

• Gifts of real estate, artwork, jewelry or collectibles 
• Gifts of a RRSP or RRIF 
• Bequests of stocks, bonds or mutual funds 
• Annuities 
• Charitable Remainder Trusts 

Information for your Lawyer or Accountant

Ecology Action Centre 
2705 Fern Lane, Halifax, NS B3K 4L3
Registered Charity Number: 107280224RR0001

Healthy Bays Network

The EAC Marine Team works closely with the Healthy Bays Network on Nova Scotia’s long anticipated five-year aquaculture regulatory review. With the EAC’s re-established seat on the Nova Scotia Aquaculture Regulatory Advisory Committee, we are able to provide coastal community members with up-to-date information on how the process is unfolding, and what to expect. With help from The Madeleine Grant, we are going further. We are developing a two-part event series in four coastal communities (Eastern Shore, Chester-St. Margaret’s area, Liverpool, and Digby area) to prepare for the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture consultations. We will ensure that community voices are no longer ignored.

Part one will gather a small group of community members at each location to discuss their key concerns about aquaculture, and target specific regulatory changes to address them – “kitchen table” style. Part two will entail public speaking events, covering industry plans for fish farm expansion in Nova Scotia and the inconsistency of aquaculture policy between Canada’s east and west coasts. We’ll encourage regulatory review submissions and help each community remind the provincial government that open net-pen fish farms are still not welcome in our public waters. We hope that this two-pronged approach will make a splash and move us away from sea-cage fish farms altogether in Atlantic Canada. The Madeleine Grant is helping to make it all possible.

Pop-Up Bike Hub

The Madeleine Grant supported the Pop-Up Bike Hub programming for summer 2023 which took the EAC Transportation Team to 19 communities across the province (from Sydney to Yarmouth) and repaired 446 bikes for free. The grant covered a portion of salary, travel and accommodation expenses, as well as some materials and supplies for bike repairs.

Built Environment

With the help of The Madeleine Grant and additional funding from Park People, the EAC Built Environment Team hopes to increase our capacity to work on our Halifax greenbelt campaign. With this funding we will hire an Officer position to expand collaboration with community groups (mainly Friends of Blue Mountain Birch Cove Lakes, Sandy Lake Conservation Association, and Williams Lake Conservation Company) working on conservation at three key greenspaces in Halifax's urban core.

This project aims to host several nature-based engagement activities (i.e. hikes, bioblitz events) encouraging people to discover these greenspaces and improve public awareness of the importance of urban parks. This project also aims to conduct surveys of park users, determine locations and extent of coverage of invasive species, explore opportunities for ecological restoration work, and explore ways to measure the health and resilience of parks.

Park People believe that large urban green spaces are linchpins in our response to climate change and how investing in them will help determine our success in ensuring our cities are resilient and liveable as we adapt to climate change. We agree with Park People and hope with increased funding and capacity we will be able to better support our community partners and improve everyone's understanding of the need for a protected Halifax greenbelt.

Local Activation Program

The Local Activation project will work directly with four communities in 2025 to support and implement active and sustainable transportation initiatives. As the newest EAC Transportation Team project, it focuses on engaging residents, building relationships with interested stakeholders and implementing chosen interventions that support and encourage the use of sustainable transportation modes within and around their communities. The chosen interventions vary in size and scope, but the intent is to support communities with initiatives that can be quickly implemented, context specific and can build momentum for larger projects and future infrastructure.  

Examples of interventions include, but are not limited to:

• Installing bike repair stations and bike racks
• Creating walking and/or cycling groups
• Installing benches along popular walking routes/trails
• Better lighting around trails/multi-use paths
• Piloting e-bike loan programs

The Madeleine Grant supports the implementation of projects in the communities of Spryfield (in the HRM) and Eskasoni First Nation. In Spryfield, we are working with the councillor and community association group to form an active transportation committee. The committee will meet regularly to identify and prioritize interventions for implementation. In Eskasoni, we will install bike repair stations and bike racks to support access to simple bike repair services year-round and convenient destination parking.

The grant also supports engagement events in New Glasgow and Truro to gather feedback from residents around interventions that would encourage them to use alternative modes of transportation. Engagement events will include some of our other programming such as the Pop-Up Bike Hub, youth mobility audits, walk & cycling audits and opportunities for residents to provide feedback on potential intervention ideas.