Special Author Patron Pricing for an Extraordinary Time: All Author Sponsorships $500

The pivot to an online festival means our usual travel and accommodation expenses have been eliminated this year. We are still honouring our standard author fees, however, and with all of our events free this year,  our Author Patron program is a vital part of the mix that puts authors on the stage. Author Patrons are part of the WritersFest family – and we’ve plenty of treats for you!

As an Author Patron, you, your friends, your Book Club, group, team or business can help bring outstanding literary figures to our stage from around the world.

You can also support Kingston WritersFest as a BookLover Donor, or a Corporate Sponsor. Interested? Read about the perks of our Author Patron and Group Author Patron donation programs below, then contact Barbara at artisticdirector@kingstonwritersfest.ca. We’ll match you with an author you’ll love to meet!

Author Patron benefits and recognition:

  • A signed complimentary copy of your author’s featured book
  • A private, 10-minute virtual meet and greet with your author following their online event
  • Acknowledgment of your participation as an Author Patron on our website (unless you wish to remain anonymous) and from the ‘stage’ at your event
  • A charitable tax receipt for your donation, in accordance with Canada Revenue guidelines†

Group Author Patron benefits and recognition:

Our Group Author Patron donation program allows you to enjoy many of the perks of our individual AP donation program for a lower per-person price! Groups have the opportunity to purchase tickets to their authors’ onstage event at a discounted rate.

  • A charitable receipt for the amount of your gift
  • group member private virtual 10-minute meet and greet with the author following their online event
  • Acknowledgment of your participation as an Author Patron on the Festival website, and from the ‘stage’ at the event
† Information on split receipting from the CanadaHelps website:
Before 2002, if a donor received anything back (i.e. an advantage or “consideration”) for the donation there was no gift. Now with the “split receipting” rules a donor can receive an advantage of up to 80% of the value of the donation but the amount of the advantage may reduce the eligible amount of the tax receipt.
Split receipting permits a charity to issue tax receipts for the eligible amount of a gift, which is the fair market value (FMV) of the gift minus the FMV of the advantage available to the donor. However, if the donor receives an advantage of over 80% of the value of the donation, then generally it will be considered that there was no “donative intent” and no gift was made. Registered charities cannot issue a tax receipt where the value of the advantage available to the donor is more than 80% of the fair market value of the gift.
CRA provides the following example of split receipting on its website:

Example
An individual donates $100 to a charity and in return receives a ticket to an art exhibit valued at $50.
FMV of gift $100
FMV of advantage (ticket received by donor) $50
Reciept issued to donor $50
If the FMV of the advantage had been $81 or more (over 80%), the intention to make a gift threshold would not have been met and the charity could not issue a receipt.
However, if the FMV of the advantage available to the donor is not more than the lesser of $75 or 10% of the FMV of the gift a registered charity does not need to deduct the advantage available to the donor when calculating the eligible amount of a gift. This is referred to as the de minimis rule and where applicable, the FMV of the gift would be the eligible amount of the tax receipt since no deduction is required.
CRA provides the following example of the de minimis rule on its website:
Example
An individual donates $100 to a charity and in return receives a mug valued at $6 and a pen valued at $2.
FMV of gift $100
Combined value of advantages $ 8
De minimis threshold (lesser of $75 or 10% of value of gift) $ 10
Since the combined value of the advantages ($8) is less than the de minimis threshold ($10), the charity does not need to subtract these advantages from the value of the gift when issuing the receipt.
If the FMV of the advantages had been $11 or more, the charity would have to subtract the advantages from the value of the gift when issuing the receipt.
For more information on split receipting, please visit CRA’s website at http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/chrts-gvng/chrts/prtng/rcpts/splt-eng.html.