Regarding: our work ME To WE Social Enterprises In the United States:
In an accompanying note, we have now provided you with information regarding the US-based ME to WE Foundation (a legally registered foundation), which acts in accordance with US tax code, and garners funds through the sale of socially-conscious products and experiences to support the work of WE
Charity. We want to ensure that you are using the entity’s full name as the “ME to WE Foundation” and/or clearly referring to the entity as a “Foundation”.
In Canada:
We seek to ensure that you are equally clear about the Canadian-based ME to WE Social Enterprises, in accordance with Revenue Canada, which garners funds through the sale of socially-conscious products
and experiences to support the work of WE Charity. We want to ensure that you are using the entity’s full name as “ME to WE Social
Enterprises
” and/or clearly referring to the entity as a “Social Enterprise”
. Please confirm receipt of this request. To be clear, with respect to the Canadian-based ME to WE Social Enterprises, based on the reams of information we have provided, it would be highly disingenuous, incorrect and harmful to refer to it as
simply a “p
rivate company,
”
as Canadaland has done previously in its podcast (September 2017). Social enterprise represents an entire sector, highly recognized in the UK, many European countries and 40 U.S. states. The model has won a Nobel peace prize. If Canada had a different tax system recognizing the role of social enterprises, ME to WE would be legally incorporated as such, as evident by the US-based ME to WE Foundation. In your article, you cannot purposely mislead readers by suggesting that ME to WE Social Enterprises is simply a
“
private enterprise
”
, when it is an entity with detailed and rigorous governance and financial controls to ensure its social purpose, as verified by third-party agencies (including Miller Thomson and a former Supreme Court Justice), and approved by government agencies (including the Ontario Public Guardian Trustee). As a result, it would be grossly irresponsible and malicious journalism to purposely confuse readers/listeners of your podcast about the entities, and their missions, structures, and appropriate checks and balances. All of the information has now been provided to you multiple times. Should you comment on ME to WE, based on your multiple historic errors, we ask that you provide proper context about social enterprise and inform your readers as such. It is your duty, in fair and balanced reporting, to not overlook this information, as well as to pass this along with proper context, as opposed to only your opinion. To purposely try to confuse readers, or make insinuations about misdeeds or personal gain, would be extremely malicious, unethical and harmful to our organization and the people we serve.
Previous information shared:
As we have now shared multiple times, we have worked with council, a retired Supreme Court justice, charitable and social enterprise experts and government officials, to ensure this model is beyond
approach. In Canada, we are the recognized leaders in the social enterprise model, and our advice is sought by several levels of government, including a recent Senate Committee, and others in the charitable sector. We have provided all of this information to you previously, and this need to also be shared in any sense of a fair and balanced article. Failure to do so would be dangerous and damaging to the good works we are trying to do and the people who rely on our efforts for their access to education, food, water and health care. Again, we attach the information we originally provided to you about the WE Charity and ME to WE Social Enterprises model, and the ME to WE Social Enterprises structure, to ensure you are not confused and you have full clarity of what we have provided previously. We want to make clear
–
again
–
that ME to WE Social Enterprises is a celebrated social enterprise that is a recognized B Corporation (by B Lab) as in the top 5 per cent of such enterprise in Canada, and that ME to WE Social Enterprises donates back as much as 80 per cent of its profits each year to WE Charity and also offers socially conscious products and services that benefit tens of thousands of people in developing countries. Furthermore, we have provided you clear evidence that we have acted with the utmost care to ensure
that anyone who interacts with the brands “WE Charity” and “ME to WE” understands the clear
distinction. We have proven this through a detailed history of the establishment of the brands, including with quotes by the esteem brand architect Stanley Hainsworth and his firm Tether. Furthermore, we have written to you about the focus group results, which revealed no brand confusion, and provide clear facts on this matter.