For John Bromley, giving isn’t just an altruistic act—it’s an essential part of his own sense of purpose and well-being. “When I reflect back on places where I give my time, talent, or treasure, I always feel good about it,” says the CEO of Charitable Impact.
Bromley has been involved in charitable work for years, through financial donations and by giving his time as a sports coach, where he connects with and mentors young athletes. “Giving is not just a mind impact, it’s something you feel physically,” he told Lianne Castelino during an interview for Where Parents Talk exploring approaches for cultivating generosity in children.
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Welcome to where parents talk. My name is Lianne Castelino. Our guest today is an entrepreneur, a TEDx speaker, and a coach. John Bromley is CEO of charitable impact of web based platform designed to reimagine giving. Charitable impact is also the first exclusively online donor advised fund in Canada. John is also a father of two. And he joins us today from Vancouver. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having me. I’m really glad to be here.
Really interesting topic when we talk about charitable giving, and generosity. And certainly through a parenting lens. Let me start with asking you, John, why is giving so important to you personally.
Giving, giving is important to me, because I think it feels like it gives me really a lot of purpose and meaning. When I do it, now, when I’m participating on giving, I’m not thinking about the purpose, or the meaning I don’t think. But when I when I reflect back on on places where I give my time, or my talent, or my money, my treasure, I do kind of look back, and I go, like that was that was something I’m glad I did. You know, for example, in the lead off you, you said something about a coach, so I coach, I coach soccer, and I played a lot of sports growing up. And I find that really meaningful to connect with these young kids that I’m coaching, and I find it meaningful to me, I find it, I think it’s meaningful to them. And that makes me feel good, but I find it meaningful to me, and then I watch them grow. And then I find meaning in that. And the other thing is I was reflecting on how whether it makes me a better public speaker so that because if you could talk to kids and get them to pay attention to you, you’re doing something, right.
Absolutely. Now take us through if you could John, you know, building on that point a little bit. Any research that you’ve come across over the time that you’ve been doing this, that you can share that really illustrates the impact of philanthropy, on the person giving the donor themselves?
Well, there’s more and more research going into this topic, actually. And you find it across sort of lay all the way through academic types of research. And it ranges from the psychological all the way through to the biological. So in the biological, you know, you’ll find studies on how you know, giving impacts are serotonin, and really impacts how we, how we how we feel literally biologically, right. So when we give, it’s not just this mind, impact that goes, Oh, wow, I think that was a nice thing to do. I think I should feel good. You’re you literally feel it physically. And over time, that’s been proven to have more and more impact on people now that all that goes all the way through to also the mindset side of things where you have, where you have, you know, studies that Come on, show people that practice gratitude, purposefully, you know, help help themselves. Right. And lastly, I what some of the stuff I’m getting really interested in these days is where we’re talking to older people who are looking back on their life, and, and talking about things that they wish they had done more and more things they did that they definitely didn’t regret doing. And what we’re finding in these studies is that giving us something people did not regret doing and giving us something that they actually wished they had done a little bit more of.
Now you believe that each of us is innately generous. Take us through what you mean, and why do you believe that?
Well, I believe it because both sort of on reflection of how I’ve experienced my own life and the life of people around me. And also, you know, just from reading, history and behavioral economics and psychological stuff, I take great interest in that. So so so when when we reflect on the second one is when you reflect on society, we’re a very social being right? We’re social animals. And the when you’re that social, you don’t survive without helping other people and being helped yourself. So this concept of it takes a village, I think illustrates to us that giving to one another and receiving the gifts of others, really helps humanity move forward and I don’t see Any evidence and I’m no historian Nope. Okay. But I don’t see any evidence and in what I’ve ever read, where there was a period of time where, you know, people didn’t give to each other, and then they, you know, in, in society and then, and then it shifted and everything was off, you feel like things are getting a lot better now. And on the personal side, like, from my perspective, I remember being getting being modeled for me, I remember my parents sort of telling me some, some things about giving. I remember, you know, experiencing it myself at different levels, but I don’t remember ever having to really learn the notion of doing for something for for someone else. And back to research. There’s I didn’t speak to this, but there’s really interesting research around children with regard to giving and you go down and and you study kids at a young age, and they choose giving over benefiting themselves. In a lot of cases. Oftentimes, this notion of altruism, which I don’t believe we are innately altruistic, I believe we’re innately generous. You get closer to altruism put these kids who are super, super young and almost don’t know the social norms of take care of yourself, you know, maybe before you take care of others. So yeah, I do believe that generosity is innate. And I think that it has, it’s something that needs to be nurtured rather than birthed, if you will?
Now, that’s interesting. When you talk about nurturing generosity in a child, what does that look like? What age ideally should we be looking at? You know, what should we be role modeling, because you could make a very strong argument for the fact that, you know, we live in a world where there’s lots going on, and perhaps people don’t have the means the time the energy, the resources to be as generous as they want to be as they could be. So how do we nurture it and children?
Well, an analogy that I like to use, although it’s a bit biased towards my upbringing, is is like with athleticism. I think athleticism for some is like, you know, some have more than others. But this idea of being able to, like function with your body and move it in certain ways and develop it to do things is, is is this innate capability. And so, you know, when he’s talking about, you know, nurturing athleticism, you don’t really hear people, on the one hand, say, Well, you should take your two year old to the park and throw balls at them, you know, and, you know, until they can catch it, you know, but you also don’t really find people kind of being like, well, I’m going to sort of really just let my kid you know, not go outside and not, you know, when they when they detract themselves to balls, not sort of, you know, encourage them along along that. And so, I think where I’m going with that idea is that like this, if generosity is innate, the way I believe it is, it’s, it’s a part of who we are, and therefore, it’s a part of everything that we do. And so the question starts to become, how do you get people to recognize what that is, and how it helps develop themselves, let alone the fact that oftentimes generosity is meant just to help other people, right, we forget about ourselves and generosity a lot. So I think the way you do it is you, you, you go back to the fundamentals of learning, and you kind of go look, if I’m not going to model that as an adult, or as a parent, if I’m not going to model generosity to the youth, they’re not going to be able to recognize it as much, because they’ve never really seen it before. If I’m not going to point it out to them when they do something generous, or when they could have done something generous, and they didn’t write gearing, when you’re when you’re young. And what this concept of sharing, I mean, ultimately sharing is is based on, you know, this, this, this, this gray area of what do I do for myself versus what do I give to others when and why. Right. And it’s not always because someone’s overtly hungry, and therefore I’m going to share with them sometimes it’s just I want you to be part of what I’m experiencing right now. So, so, but when you get to the second part of your question, you know, it’s a really important topic. And I think this is one of the areas where, where giving and, and charitable giving in particular, needs to be examined. So the way first of all, it’s important to recognize that, you know, time and talent and treasure tell you that money is scarce, right? I mean, so So How and when do you choose to use it to allocate to others that’s a that’s an important and can’t get to a complicated question. is no science around this, where I like to go with the discussion, though, great like, is is, is into, you know, recognizing how giving of your time and talent and, and even money is something that can happen all throughout life when you’re in different things going on. I mean, you can be in the lineup, you know, at the store, and, you know, do something for someone behind you, you can, you can, you know, that sounds sort of charitable at law per se, but like, you know, there’s there’s time there’s we can be at work, and give some of your time to help a colleague to help a colleague out. So the giving, and generosity stuff is something that’s really a part of everything we do. And I think it’s actually oftentimes harder to almost not be generous than it is to be generous. The other hard part is to recognize when you’re being generous, and to call yourself out and to let yourself kind of recognize that you’ve done something there to help someone. You don’t have to brag about it. But it’s just to kind of go, hey, you know what, I spent an extra 20 minutes there helping my colleague go to work, and I’m pretty sure that had a pretty significant impact on them. Wonder if my boss noticed, you know, maybe that’s gonna come back and help me later.
It’s an important point that you’re making, John, because I think it’s even more emphasized when you’re dealing with kids, right? So you’ve got the role modeling piece, and let’s say they start to practice and follow what you’re modeling for them. But having the opportunity to then as a parent stop, and let them realize what they’ve done is got to be really important for that child.
I think so I think that’s really critical. I mean, you do that in sport, right? You’d say, Hey, that was a really good thing you just did. And here’s why I think it was good. Right? And you’d also do that on the constructive criticism, component, here’s what you just did, and why it was maybe what you know, wrong, or whatever language you use, you know, and here’s why I think that, and that’s critical to do with giving. And I mean, you know, lots of parents do do that. With generosity. I think there’s a I think there’s a lot of good nurturing a generosity in by parents, and it’s done quite naturally. I mean, no one teaches you how to teach someone to be generous. I think people just know, within reason, like what’s what’s what’s right, and what’s wrong, and what’s sort of good and what’s, what’s bad. I actually don’t worry so much about generosity, and it being nurtured or taught. What I do worry about, however, is the translation of generosity into community giving back into charitable, more types of giving. And that’s the word particular, I think, there’s, there’s work to be done to help people teach that more formalized type of giving.
Did you give us an example of what you’re talking about?
Yeah, sure. So, you know, you there’s, you have people over and someone doesn’t have a plate of food, you know, you kind of go generally walk to the walk to the table, and maybe bring them some food, or there’s some really ill grandma and grandpa around, they can’t get out of their chairs, easily. You go in you, you serve them that, you know, some people call that politeness. Some people, you know, would call that generosity either way, I think it’s a good thing to do. But what about recognizing, so that’s in this closed environment where we’re you can recognize and you have social relationships, and there’s maybe even hierarchical notions of politeness that sort of suggest, oh, you should do that. What about the old person in the you know, who lives down the block? Who? Or who’s in your community, whether you know them or not, who’s food insecure, right, who doesn’t have the food to get that doesn’t ever have someone visiting them? So how do you sort of take this idea of what you do for grandma and grandpa, to this level of, you know, there’s probably other grandparents in around town? And does that interest me? First of all? And secondly, if it does, how do I start to purposefully schedule some time, and maybe some money to allocate towards helping that problem? And so I think a lot of the problem with teaching charitable giving, is actually not knowing what’s sort of charitable and what’s not. Right. And so you have this idea of generosity, that that translates quite easily and smoothly in society. But it when it gets to formalized giving you you don’t see it as much. And when I talk to people about it, they go, Oh, I didn’t know I could do that. Or I didn’t know there are charities that focused on that or I didn’t know. You know, there are ways for me to jump into some It already exists to contribute some of my time or talent or money towards that. And I think that’s where the education needs to be to form of recognition helping people recognize, rather than helping people do.
Absolutely. And a lot of what you just described is really, the reason that I’m assuming behind your creation of charitable impact is an organization to help people, you know, better understand organizations that they can give to you went from a career in corporate finance to founding charitable impact. What was the catalyst for that change?
Well, life, you know, as you get older, I’m 46. Now, life is just sort of happens, right? And you look back and you go, gee, like, what was the catalyst. So looking backwards, you know, you kind of go, Well, I could probably describe this in 100 different ways. There were two catalysts that I think I recognized at the time. The first was, I was not, I had a great job. I was very privileged to be in that role. I was well paid, I was learning tons. But it wasn’t a cultural fit for me. And it took me some time, to have the courage, actually, to recognize that that was true. And then I had the agency to do something about it. And part of the courage was recognizing it, and then doing something about it. I mean, back to charitable giving, right. The second thing I did about it was I actually left my job for the for, for the first time, in my professional career, I left a job without having another job to go to, that took, that took some courage for me to do. But it was the culture fit piece that wasn’t there. The other catalysts that got into starting charitable impact, because those two things didn’t happen at the same time. Although without the first happening, the second wouldn’t have happened is I started by happenstance, working with my father, who was one of the pioneers of charity law at the time, one of the top charity lawyer, he’s retired now, but one of the top charity lawyers in the country. And there, I just learned an incredible amount about the charity sector, particularly on the out of facilitate charity to happen legally, all the way through behavioral economically, you know, and, and, and through that, I learned, what I sort of needed to learn in order to get to the place where I believe you would have to be in order to start something like charitable impact.
There must have been something so much deeper, though, John, right, to make that courageous move to leave your employment leave, you know, a safe income and go off on your own into something that, you know, just the wild unknown, I guess. So when you started to kind of think about the structure of charitable impact, what would you say is the gap that your organization fills?
the gap is that no one serves the donor. Almost everything in the all the professional services that target the charity sector, this big, big, actually very big broad sector are, is focused on the charity itself, and enabling and running the charitable, the activity, the charitable activity itself. And so what I was able to recognize, after many, many years of working with my my dad, and learning a ton, about charity in general, including all the structures that enable and facilitate things to happen, etc, was was was that there was no one really there to serve the donor. And so the donors were interfacing with this big, broad charitable space, through this mechanism that we call fundraising. This sort of sales and marketing arm of the sector, and I’m pro fundraising, pro sales and marketing, it’s needed in all forms of business, including charitable business. But you know, it’s not like you are it’s not like the bank, like a bank. If you’re if you have a bank account, it’s not like the sole purpose that is like them selling to you to be like, Hey, you should really put money here and spend money here right now. Right? A lot of what you learn, especially if you learn sort of financial literacy and if you learn about, you know, things coming from yourself, intrinsically out. You’ll learn about the reason why it’s important to have a bank account the reason why, you know, maybe it’s important to learn about a mortgage so you can buy a house or insurance so that you can protect yourself against things like that. And it’s not just a big sales job. And so in the charitable giving world, what I recognized was that the vast majority of donors are interacting with the charity sector based on this sort of sales mechanic, instead of starting with themselves and who they are, who they were, are, and you know, what they love, and why they love that. And therefore, what role giving might play in this stuff that they love that they have reasons to love. And then to say, well, here’s how you can build a pathway, you know, for yourself to do that. So that the gap Cerbone type fills is is creating an organization, we created an organization whose purpose was to work for and serve the donor, regardless of what causes they cared about, or how much money they had to give away.
So take us through if you could, some of the logistics in a very simple way, like illustrate what that looks like, in terms of the platform. And also what is a donor advised fund for people who may not be aware?
If you don’t know what a donor advised fund is, you are in the majority. So don’t worry about that don’t revised fund is, is analogous to having your own bank account, but just for charitable giving. So if you think about what a bank account is, it’s this safe, secure space that’s just for you. Where you can load and all the money that is given to you or that you earn yourself. Right. So when someone earns money, instead of be like, Oh, what am I going to do with it? You just go, Oh, I’m gonna put it in my bank account and safe and secure there. And then you can hold the money there. And why is it important to be able to hold the money, because then you can think about, right, you can take some time, you can take some some free space to think about how you’re actually going to use that, oh, I got to pay these bills, oh, I want to save some money for my my kids who who might go to university later in life, oh, I want to invest some money for my own retirement, oh, maybe I want to give some money away. So the holding mechanism, and then from there, you know, you can spend it on anything you want. And so so so a donor advised fund is exactly like that, except it’s just built for charitable giving. So the difference is, when you put the money in, you get a tax receipt. Right away, you’ve already donated the money, it’s not yours anymore, but you can hold it now. And this donor advised fund this fund that you as the donor are advising, and it’s a donor advised fund. And when you’re ready, you can say hey, send it to this charity, or send it to that charity, or in a place like Chairman pack, send it to this other account where I’m going to send it to my kid for them as a charitable allowance to choose what to do with the money instead. Right? So. So this is the context in which I would say the system is built to serve the donor, because we give you this safe place where you can just donate the money. And in so doing become part of of some of the people in society who choose to give back, especially using their money on gonna give him 50 bucks away. I’m not quite sure where I’m gonna give it yet, but I’m going to give 50 bucks away. So I’m going to set up a recurring donation into my donor advised fund for $50 a month. And now I’m a donor. Now that $50 A month is going in and let’s say it’s month three, and you’ve got $150. And then you go in hmm, maybe someone maybe my friend, you know, just talk to me about this thing they’re doing. Maybe, maybe, maybe Grandma, you know, didn’t go so well in the hospital. And, you know, she’s got to stay in a little longer. But what Boy, am I grateful she’s got great people looking after, oh, hospitals a charity, I want to give them some money. Send them $75 You still have $75 to do something else with. Right. And so in the current context, once you work for the donors, we give them the facilities we give them the tools to have the time and space and freedom they need to become the charitable person they want to become. And then we wrap that with support because you know, we’ve got people at triple impact who who, who, who love charity and love to talk to people and instead of selling them on what a charity that they should give to they their job really is to more listen to you and to try pull out for you the types of things that you can do. And so it’s a tool and its support focused on the donor so that the donor can help the charities that they want to help
it certain It sounds like a very simplified process that you’ve put together and the platform that goes with it.
So how would you say then that charitable impact helps facilitate, nurture, and perhaps even sustain a culture of giving within a family?
Well, specifically within a family, I mean, I, my answer would be the same no matter what context you you gave, but the family, maybe give some, some some context, you know, to share specifics. So, you know, the parent, you know, the parents or the parents can come along and say, Hey, we’re going to purposefully choose to share our value of giving back to society with our children. And so we’re going to where the money is at the money, right? Even if you don’t have a lot, the parents are still the ones the money, we’re going to, we’re going to, we’re going to start giving ourselves and we’re going to start talking to our kids about that, right? And talking to kids about it back to this recognition piece. When kids come home from school, and they go, Oh, I use a you know, honey, what did you learn? And they say, Oh, I learned about, you know, about this, you know, you can kind of go like, you know, whatever the topic is, you’re gonna Hey, did you know, was that meaningful to you? Oh, yeah, if they get excited, you know, you know, that there’s, there’s, there’s things outside of school that were that actually goes on in real life. And we can connect you to that. Are you interested in that? Should we try it? Should we just even look at it. And if you’re not interested later, we can pull back and look at something else. Right. So taking these things that they learn if it’s about poverty relief, or if it’s about education, or if it’s about, you know, religion, or if it’s about the environment, or if it’s about health, all of these things connect into charities in places like in North America and Europe, most places around the world. So first and foremost, I think it’s about nurturing your kids to know that when they’re interested in the topic, they can do something about it. We do that in sport, we do that with academics, we don’t do that so much with this notion of giving back. So that’s the first thing. And, and then just to get a bit more specific, and I could go on at great length on this topic. One of the things that I do with my children is I, my wife, and I set money aside forgiving ourselves. And then we take a small chunk of that, and we give it to our kids for them to give it away in the form of what we refer to as a charitable allowance. So each of my kids get $10 A month gets sent from my account, to their account that charitable impact. And, and they have to decide what to do with it. And I’ve got two kids and like everyone with kids are kind of always shocked about how different your two kids are, or your five kids and how everyone’s so different, even though they came from the same place. And, you know, I’ve got one kid who’s saving up the money. And he wants to get to a big number like $500, so that he can do one or two large guests are something that’s really meaningful to him. And when you say, Well, son, what’s meaningful to you? He has ideas, but he doesn’t know yet what he wants to do. And that’s perfectly fine. You want to nurture that as a parent, as long as they keep thinking about it, and take some action at some point. My other son, money comes in. He goes, I know what I want to do. Pretty sure I know what I want to do. It’s this and I’m going to do it right now. And then and what we should do is let him do that. And then after he’s done it kind of go hey, like, how did you feel about that? You know, what, are you gonna do the same thing next month? You think anyway, you’ve got some time to think about it. That was really cool. Hope you feel good about it. Is there anything you regret about that? Well, there is let’s talk about that. Oh, there’s not way to go. Let’s talk about that. So, what I think’s important, giving in a family setting, and that a donor advised fund like charitable impact enables, okay, pardon the plug but you need the tool to be able to do it is it enables a parent to shift from just modeling and talking about generosity to saying, here’s something for you, and you’re gonna have to do it yourself. We do that lots of parents choose to give their kids and allowance to teach financial literacy are in the high float in terms. In the future, I want to see parents choosing to give their children charitable allowances to start developing charitable literacy.
Lots of interesting food for thought certainly for parents and families to consider John Bromley, CEO of charitable impact. Really appreciate your time and your perspective today. Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me on. Great questions.
Thank you
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Research supports the idea that giving doesn’t just benefit the receiver—it also has tangible psychological and biological benefits for the giver. Studies show generosity can trigger the release of serotonin, a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of well-being. This kind of feedback loop can improve one’s mental health and overall life satisfaction.
Generosity is Innate
One of the most compelling beliefs Bromley holds is that generosity is something innate in all of us. “We are social animals, and our survival depends on helping each other,” he says. He points to the concept of “it takes a village,” which underscores how communities rely on mutual assistance to thrive. Bromley also highlights research that shows even young children, before they fully understand social norms, often choose to share or help others, revealing that generosity is instinctual.
Bromley recounts his own exposure to generosity, from a young age. “I remember giving being modelled for me,” he says. “I remember my parents sort of telling me some things about giving. I remember experiencing it myself at different levels, but I don’t remember ever having to really learn the notion of doing something for someone else.” Bromley, who is also a TEDx speaker adds, “I do believe that generosity is innate. And I think it’s something that needs to be nurtured rather than birthed, if you will.”
So how can parents nurture this natural inclination toward generosity in their children? Bromley suggests that just as parents encourage athleticism or academic achievement, they should also model generosity. “Generosity is part of everything we do,” he explains. “As parents, if we don’t model it, our children won’t recognize it.” Simple acts of kindness, like helping a neighbour or sharing with others, can be powerful lessons for kids.
At the same time, Bromley acknowledges the challenges modern families face, from time constraints to financial pressures. “Generosity doesn’t always have to be about giving money. It’s also about giving your time and talent,” he says. Small, everyday actions—helping a colleague at work or assisting someone in line at the store—can have just as much of an impact. “I think it’s actually harder to not be generous than it is to be generous,” says Bromley. “The other hard part is to recognize when you’re being generous, and to call yourself out and to let yourself kind of recognize that you’ve done something there to help someone. You don’t have to brag about it, but it’s just kind of going, hey, you know what, I spent an extra 20 minutes there helping my colleague, and I’m pretty sure that had a pretty significant impact on them.”
The Gap in Charitable Giving
Despite the natural inclination toward generosity, Bromley sees a gap in how charitable giving is structured. Most fundraising efforts, he says, focus on the needs of the charity, not the donor. “When you think about your bank account, it’s not just about the bank selling you products—it’s a safe place for your money to grow and be managed. In the charity sector, though, everything revolves around fundraising,” he says. Bromley realized the charity sector lacked a platform that truly served the donor by allowing them to make informed, thoughtful decisions about their giving.
This insight led to the creation of Charitable Impact, a web-based platform that aims to bridge this gap. “We want to serve the donor,” Bromley says. Charitable Impact is designed to give people the time, space, and tools to make intentional, meaningful charitable contributions.
Simplified Giving
At the heart of Charitable Impact is the concept of a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF). Bromley compares it to a bank account, but for charitable giving. “You put money into the fund, you get a tax receipt, and then you have the flexibility to choose when and where to donate,” he explains. This model allows donors to manage their charitable giving over time, providing the opportunity to support causes that align with their values, whether it’s through regular donations or one-off contributions.
Bromley believes by making the process simpler and more transparent, Charitable Impact can empower people to become more intentional in their giving. “It’s not just about the money. It’s about recognizing what matters to you, and giving from a place of purpose,” he says.
Putting Generosity into Practice at Home
Have being exposed to giving during his childhood, Bromley is mindful about how generosity is practiced in his home.
“One of the things I do with my children is my wife and I set money aside for giving ourselves,” he says. “And then we take a small chunk of that, and we give it to our kids for them to give it away in the form of what we refer to as a charitable allowance. So each of my kids get $10 a month sent from my account, to their account, and they have to decide what to do with it.”
For Bromley, it is about creating a ripple effect of generosity that can be passed down from generation to generation. “It’s not just about giving. It’s about creating a movement where giving becomes a natural, intentional part of our lives,” he says.
“In the future, I want to see parents choosing to give their children charitable allowances to start developing charitable literacy.”
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