Social Responsibility

WORKING AND LIVING RESPONSIBLY

At Milestone, we believe that a business is a member of its community, the same way a home is part of its neighbourhood. As such, we participate in our community in a variety of ways.

When conducting appreciation events for our clients, we have always used local theatres, theatre groups, businesses and restaurants. Past events have been hosted at Pumphouse Theatre and the Globe Cinema, for example.

Internally, we conduct our business as efficiently and in line with the environment as possible. We are always looking for ways to reduce our environmental footprint. We recycle diligently, print on both sides of a page, reuse paper and e-mail our client newsletters. We also offer paperless statements through Canaccord, which saves paper, but also reduces the environmental impact of delivering statements through the mail system.

Giving back is also very important to us. We currently contribute to three charities on a monthly basis:

Community Responsibility

YWCA of Calgary

The YWCA of Calgary works to break the cycles of domestic violence, homelessness and poverty. We believe that healthy women and healthy families lead to a thriving community.

The YWCA is a vital piece of Calgary’s social and economic fabric, serving more than 15,000 vulnerable women, children and men in 2008 alone. The YWCA’s staff and volunteers are committed to social change and work to build a healthy community by building strength and capacity in women. Their goal is a society where there is no longer a gender gap and the cycles of domestic violence, homelessness and poverty have been eradicated. To that end, they focus their efforts on the areas of domestic violence, homelessness, poverty, children and families, and health and wellness.

The YWCA’s mission is to offer programs and services for women and their families, providing them with the skills, abilities and opportunities to contribute to and benefit from healthy communities. And the YWCA’s vision is to serve as a cornerstone for women and their families.

Social Responsibility

Alberta Children's Hospital Foundation

The Alberta Children’s Hospital promotes a philosophy of family-centred care and recognizes that often children heal better at home. The hospital has a clinical outpatient area bigger than a football field, on each of five floors, to serve the more than 60% of patients who are treated as outpatients. These patients have appointments with specialists and healthcare teams and then return home at the end of their visits.

The healthcare teams for each patient are able to confer easily and quickly regarding a patient’s care. This unique system has been in place at the Alberta Children’s Hospital since the 1970s and continues to be modeled worldwide at other centres as a leading edge method of providing outpatient care.

Environmental Responsibility

Cross Conservation Society

The Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area consists of 4,800 acres of rolling foothills land donated by Ann and Sandy Cross for the protection of wildlife habitat and conservation education. It is located just southwest of Calgary off Highway 22X. Sandy Cross, the son of one of the Calgary Stampede’s “Big Four,” A.E. Cross, and Helen Rothney Macleod, started purchasing land south of Calgary in 1945 for what would become Rothney Farm and eventually the Cross Conservation Area. In 1987, Ann and Sandy Cross donated nearly 2,000 acres of their land to the Province of Alberta. At the time, it was the largest private land donation in Canadian history and The Nature Conservancy of Canada operated the area.

In 1991, a fundraising campaign raised $2 million to build the education centre, Belvedere House, and establish a management fund for program and facility operation. In 1996, Ann and Sandy Cross donated an additional 2,800 acres of land to bring the total size of the Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area to 4,800 acres, or 7.5 square miles. In 1996, the Sandy Cross Conservation Foundation was created to manage the newly enlarged conservation area and another $2 million was raised to increase the management fund.