It is not often that Investment Executive is credited with inspiring philanthropy. But that’s what happened two years ago, when Chris Cahill, a certified financial planner with Financial Strategies Group in London, Ont., could not stop thinking about an IE article he had read. In the article, an advisor had described his annual trips to South America, where he helped build schools and community centres in impoverished villages.

“It sat on my desk for three weeks,” Cahill says. Finally, he contacted Missionary Ventures Canada (www.mvcanada.org), a group that organizes working trips around the world for volunteers, and signed on as a team leader.

At first, he wanted to go to Haiti, but then decided to tie the opportunity to his church’s sponsorship of 30 children near Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.

He talked to clients, family and friends. He says he spoke to 22 people and 18 jumped in — nine medical specialists and nine people who could work on construction. Each person was willing to devote a week to helping a village of poor Dominicans north of the capital city.

“It shows people want to do something,” he says. The problem, he adds, is they don’t know what steps to take.

What Cahill appreciates about Missionary Ventures is that it takes care of everything — lodging, food and security — and provides co-ordinators in the region to work with the teams, helping them understand the point of their efforts. This is important, he adds, because the impulse of visitors to such a poor region is to throw money around, which is a mistake. “You have to control your desire to be Santa Claus and try to fix everything at once,” he says.

Nothing could have prepared Cahill for his first trip. His team started building a school in the village, handing out beans, rice and oil to residents, and medically treating 900 children. “You have this romantic vision that you’re going to help people,” he says. “And when you’re into it for a few days, you’re overwhelmed.”

The poverty — the people are malnourished and live in tiny shacks without proper sewage or water treatment — is shocking, he says, adding it is a wake-up call for anyone who thinks we all have the same living standards: “It refocused my world view.”

But there were pleasant surprises. “These people are materially impoverished but they are spiritually wealthy,” Cahill says of the people he met. “They are happy people. They’re not getting uptight about whether they have leather seats in their car.” On his three trips to the village, he learned a lot — about the people and about himself.

One reason he chose to volunteer in the Dominican Republic was because it was possible to take his wife and two children, ages 15 and 11, to the island. Last March, the family ventured out of their beach resort for two days to visit the children sponsored by their church.

Cahill says the juxtaposition of the two lifestyles was heartbreaking. “It had a profound effect on us,” he says, and affected how they lived when they returned to Canada. “We don’t spend as much any more,” he says. “Our consumption has gone down and our giving has gone up.” IE