By Pepper Parr
May 9th, 2016
BURLINGTON, ON
How does a guy with a small operation in the financial services field manage to write a cheque for $100,000 to a charity?
The story about how Dan Noonan does tax return work for his clients is an interesting look at how an innovative approach to providing a needed service can benefit a large number of people.
That is a cheque for $100,000 that Dan Noonan sent to the Burlington Community Foundation -it was the result of his win-win-win formula.
Dan is a financial advisor who works with what he calls the Mom and Pop part of the market. He is a strong believer in the premise that you cannot sell financial products to people unless you fully understand their incomes which means looking at their tax returns. The closest look you get at a tax return is when you prepare the document.
Noonan used preparing tax returns free as a way to draw in new clients – there was on small hitch to that – the client was expected to make a donation to a local charity.
For the first few years the donations were made to the Breast Cancer Support Services but as the amount of money collected began to grow Noonan needed to find a better way to distribute those donations.
Noonan was completing more than 2000 tax returns a year and at a donation level of around $50 there was a significant amount of money being raised.
He began to work with the Burlington Community Foundation where a special fund was created and dedicated for use in the mental health field where support and awareness have become critical. We live in a society where one out of every five people has a mental health issue.
Noonan is pretty blunt with is comments on saving for retirement. It is almost impossible to replicate the returns of government pension plans or those run for the benefit of civil servants. The pension group that manages the pensions of municipal employees and the one that manages teacher pension plans have both mass and longer terms working in their favour.
Individuals don’t have access to organizations of that size. Close to half his client base, which gets built out of those who take advantage of his tax return offering, are retired.
Managing their finances and their income stream can be stressful he said. “We are in a low interest rate driven economy – and those interest very very low rates are low – not something that works for pension plans. They are driving the housing market with property values gaining more than 15% year over year – which he adds isn’t sustainable.
Noonan looks for investment opportunities that will grow what a client has and/or offer a dividend that is decent.
His office walls are covered with large sheets of paper setting out the different returns available – he scours the market for those opportunities and advises clients what he feels is best for them. His current favourites include Fairfax and National Bank.
There are a number of situations he adds where the fees that are paid to the financial adviser amount to more than the return – “you are looking at dead money” he said.
Noonan has strong views on the new provincial pension plan. “Business should not be expected to shoulder the cost of an employee’s pension. People have to learn to plan for their own futures and put 10% of their income into a pension fund and then invest for the long term.
3rd from left, Dan Noonan, Investment Advisor, Argosy Securities; joined by Burlington Community Foundation board members Catherine Brady, Phil Reddon; President and CEO Colleen Mulholland; Leighan Basadur, John Rockx. Photo credit: Dave Gruggen Photography.
We don’t have that kind of a culture in this country yet. Instead we lay this cost on employers who want to invest their profit in growing their business.
Noonan believes that the CEO’s job is to allocate the capital they have – that strong belief comes out of more than 15 years as a financial advisor and another 20 years in the financial services business where he worked for some of the largest financial management companies in the country.
There is the belief in this country that “someone is going to look after me” – that someone turns out to be the government.
At heart Dan Noonan is the kind of person who looks for opportunities that benefits everyone. His objective doesn’t seem to be to add to just his wealth – although he does do well.
He is direct and there isn’t a lot of nonsense to him. He sees his job as helping people invest the funds they have as wisely as possible and being able to go home at the end of the day knowing people are better off.
What he calls his win-win-win proposition where people get a very good deal on having their tax returns done, Noonan has a source of new clients and the community gets a significant sum of money to use to help those who need help.
“I place a full page advertisement in the newspaper to inform the community about the service. Noonan has been fortunate – the idea works – so much so that others are beginning to take the same approach.
The walls of Noonan’s office are covered in opportunities that he thinks work for his client base.
Given the amount that Noonan is now raising he needed to partner with an organization that had depth and experience in distributing funds to organizations that will put them to good use.
The Burlington Community Foundation manages millions in funds that been placed in their hands. They were the organization the city turned to when they needed someone to step in and manage the collection of donations and then the distribution of those donations to people whose homes had been badly damaged by the August 2014 flood.
They worked with Noonan to create a fund that would focus on mental health needs in the community. Burlington is a leader in recognizing this need within its population and creating an endowment that would both grow the funds and handle their distribution by accepting applications from groups and organizations that work in the mental health field.
It turns out to be another of those win win win situations that bring a smile to Dan Noonan’s face.
Notice too that there isn’t any government involvement in this.
