by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

When it comes to donating, Quebec wallets have long been like the jaws of a crocodile, fast to snap closed and painfully slow to open.

Now, fresh after an uncharacteristic display of generosity towards the tsunami victims, Canada's least charitable people are soon to be faced with an unprecedented demand for donations, including a $300-million fundraising campaign for McGill's new superhospital.

At least one expert believes that fundraisers might be getting less, just when they're asking for more. "With the daily appeal for funds it becomes overwhelming for everybody," says Soma Hewa, a Châteauguay-based academic researcher and author specializing in the politics of philanthropy. "Charities have become a profession in itself. There's a growing antipathy to giving. When they get asked for money, people feel, ‘What the hell, you're asking me again?' It's at the point of a saturation of benevolence."

Hewa, who consults with many local fundraising efforts, says that the tsunami experience proves that we're ready to give, but just not to the same old institutions.

"There was clear evidence people weren't giving money to charitable organizations, compared to how they showed their support for tsunami victims," he says.

But philanthropic fundraising isn't entirely about public mood. Charities know that about 80 per cent of what they raise is collected from about 20 per cent of the population, says Don Taddeo, president of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) Foundation. As a result, pitches are aimed to hit the strike zone of the wealthy elite.

McGill has already started to woo the rich. Their campaign to raise $300-million for the $1.2-billion superhospital has already begun, but unless you're a member of the deep-pocketed set, you've almost certainly not heard their appeal quite yet.

One MUHC fundraising official acknowledges that we're in the first "quiet stage," in which past donors and wealthier people are already asked to contribute. "We're working around leadership donors to make sure they're properly informed, cultivated and solicited," says Don Taddeo.

"In campaigns of this size you identify your dearest and closest supporters - people who have supported the hospital - and you bring them around the table," he says. "You have to do your homework and identify as scientifically as possible who the top donors would be."

The MUHC hopes to have $120-million pledged from the well-heeled set by the time they start publicizing their fundraising campaign at the end of September. The big givers are asked to give upwards of half-a-million each, seven per cent of which will go towards funding the administration of the fundraising campaign.

But Hewa says even the most generous rich can lose their taste for philanthropy if they get hit up too often. "Even J.D. Rockefeller felt so overwhelmed by the everyday appeals for money, he totally stopped giving at the peak of his wealth," he says.

Hewa says McGill could face additional skepticism as the price tag on such projects is often more fiction than fact. "Quebec has a culture of underbudgeting for public projects," he says. "Often, they get halfway through and then increase the budget. Often these budgets are based on appealing to public opinion rather than a real financial estimate."