CIBC client, Pamela Shainhouse has a lot of experience in the charity sector as the Founder and CEO of The Shainhouse Group, a division of Allistyle Inc Opens in a new window.. She’s also a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant. Shainhouse co-founded a registered charity with her daughter, Alli Shapiro-Amar called Alli’s Journey Opens in a new window.. The charity provides support to young adults navigating a cancer diagnosis.
In 1999, Alli was diagnosed with late-stage Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. “During her 7-year journey through cancer, she found there was no support available for people in her age group, 18 to 35 years old,” Shainhouse shared. In Canada, patients over 18 age-out of SickKids Hospital and get thrown into a system mostly designed with older patients in mind. Shainhouse explained that “dealing with a diagnosis at that young stage of life, when you have so many milestones ahead of you, is very difficult.”
As the cancer progressed, Shainhouse and her daughter started a small fundraising campaign with the sale of T-shirts. Alli didn’t want the money to go towards Hodgkin’s disease because she felt the impact would be too narrow. Instead, Alli had bigger plans. “We started a charity to support people in her age group because at the time there was nothing out there. I remember sitting with Alli trying to think of the right name for the charity, and then I thought of Alli’s Journey, which was a subject line I used for her email updates when Alli was having a bone marrow transplant in Calgary.”
Shainhouse’s fundraising experience helped her determine what structure was right for Alli’s Journey. “We wanted people to get their income tax receipts. That’s important for me as a donor and I believe that people give more if they receive one,” she explained. “It’s difficult for corporations and foundations to give money to a non-profit, they prefer to give to charity. Therefore, you must make sure to give your donors all the benefits they can possibly receive, and a tax receipt is one of those.”
Shainhouse’s networking paid off again when they set up the charity. “We had the right lawyers at the right time, and we got charitable status in one day, which is unheard of,” she explained. “We were set up as a private foundation at first, then became a public foundation with a small, but mighty, board of directors.”
They launched the charity in 2006 with a live music event to raise funds to support young adult cancer programs.
“We believed that giving to others was the best way to begin,” says Shainhouse. “Then, after a few years of doing that, we decided to begin our own initiatives. The first was to set up a comfort room at Sunnybrook Hospital for the Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation Opens in a new window.. Four hundred guests attended this first concert in support of the cause. Alli came on stage with so much class, resting with one hand on the piano, even though she could barely stand. She died seven weeks later. Throughout her 7-year battle with cancer, and prior, Alli taught me how to live, and most of all how to love and appreciate myself.”
Today, the main initiative of Alli’s Journey is their Comfort Bag Program, which they produce and distribute. “The bag is important because it shows these cancer patients that somebody cares about them and they are not alone in their journey,” Shainhouse says. The charity partners with the Adolescent and Young Adult Program out of the Princess Margaret Hospital.
“Many young adults show up for an appointment and could possibly start treatment right away. The bag provides personal care items, like a toothbrush and pair of cozy socks that are useful during treatment and help make the experience a little less frightening,” she noted.
Since co-founding Alli’s Journey, Shainhouse’s career has taken her from fundraising for others to running her own charity, and now leading a consulting firm. She is an inspiration to entrepreneurs living the truth that it’s never too late to start, to pivot or to give back.
“I started in professional fundraising in my late 30s with three children. I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do, but I knew how to network. I networked with the right people and they taught me. By the time I left that sector, 20 years later, I had raised $45M for charities.”
Now, with the charity running smoothly, Shainhouse is focusing her talents on The Shainhouse Group, offering training and consultation in the field of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging for the corporate community. This includes showing organizations how to create accessible and inclusive spaces for their teams and customers. “It is really important for me because I was tired of people who had expertise and brilliance being ignored because of how they looked or identified.”
Working across industries, her team is made up of experts from groups that are often underserved or discriminated against, including Black and Indigenous people, people of colour, members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, those who use mobility devices and more.
Through all her business success, Shainhouse and the Alli’s Journey Board of Directors continue to work closely with hospital departments to make sure the bags are resonating with patients. “I have a dream that one day my grandchildren will take over the charity, but you never know,” shared Shainhouse.
