FAQ

Please visit our Online Donor Portal. Once you’re in the portal, access your receipt under the donation history section. Still having trouble? Get in touch using the contact us form at the end of this page and a member of our team will be happy to help you.

You can update it through our Online Donor Portal. Once you’re in the portal, update your credit card under the recurring donation section. Still having trouble? Get in touch using the form at the bottom of this page and a member of our team would be happy to help you.

You can update it by visiting our Online Donor Portal. Once you’re in the portal, update your monthly donation under the recurring donation section. Still having trouble? Get in touch using the form at the bottom of this page and a member of our team would be happy to help you.

We’re so grateful that you’ve decided to make the conservation work done by the JGIC part of your legacy. Leaving a bequest is as simple as adding a clause to your Will. Please get in touch with your lawyer or financial advisor to plan what gift you’d like to leave and understand the tax benefits of your gift. If you’d like to leave a gift to JGIC, our legal name, and the proper beneficiary for your gift is: The Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation. If you’re looking for more information visit our Legacy Giving page or get in touch with us directly using the form at the bottom of this page.

We know there are a lot of organizations you can support. And we’re honoured you’ve chosen us. Your donation helps support JGI’s long-lasting conservation solutions: community-centred conservation projects both in Africa and right here at home in Canada, youth empowerment through Roots & Shoots, and care for the rescued chimpanzees at the Tchimpounga Sanctuary. Depending on what’s happening, your support goes where the need is greatest. If you would like your donation to be directed to a specific program or project, you can include this in the ‘comment’ section of the donation form, or speak directly with a member of our team. Catch up on our Annual Reports to find out what your gifts have helped achieve.

We know that trust is essential to any relationship. When you choose to support us, we take that support seriously. Because of this, we undertook the Imagine Canada accreditation process and are proud to be an accredited organization. This means we’ve demonstrated excellence in 5 key areas of charity operations as reviewed by a third-party panel of sector peers. Only 200 charities in Canada have achieved this accreditation so far and we’re proud to display the trustmark on our website.

Jane is dedicated to reaching people from all ages all around the world. She spends much of her time giving talks online, and pre-pandemic she travelled over 300 days a year. Because of her busy schedule Jane can’t speak at every event she’s invited to. But if you’re interested in having her speak you can fill out a form to Invite Jane and a member of our team will get back to you.

Jane receives hundreds of requests for endorsements from incredible people just like you, all around the world. Due to her busy schedule and dedication to reach as many people as possible, she can’t fulfill every endorsement request she receives. While we’d be happy to review your request, we can’t guarantee Jane’s endorsement. If you’d still like to seek Jane’s endorsement, please use the contact us form at the end of this page and we’ll do our best to get back to you within 5 business days. Please be aware that Jane will only endorse materials that align with her values and our work at JGIC.

We’d love to help (and thank you for sharing Jane’s message)! To start, we’d recommend visiting our “Meet Jane” page. There, you can discover her incredible life story, how she began studying chimps, and how she’s empowering people around the world today. Once you’re all caught up, visit our Messages from Jane section to hear more about her work, and her hope for the future – from Jane herself. If you still have questions after visiting those pages, please use the contact us form at the end of this page. We’ll do our best to get back to you within 5 business days.

There are countless important issues worthy of support happening today. And Jane spends much of her time advocating for a more environmentally sustainable and just world for all. Because of her busy schedule and the focus of her work, we’re unable to forward calls to action to Jane. But we encourage you to stand up for the causes you believe in. Like Jane says, “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

We share letters with Jane whenever she visits us in Canada. She spends time reading every single one of them. It’s messages from supporters like you that keep her hopeful and inspired. If you’d like to get your message to her, we ask that you please send your letter to our JGI Canada office and we’ll hold it for her until she arrives in Canada.

Please address your letter to:
The Jane Goodall Institute of Canada
c/o University of Toronto Mailroom
563 Spadina Crescent, Toronto, ON M5S 2J7

Our team currently works on a hybrid model and are not always in the office, but someone is at the front desk to accept deliveries Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays every week.

If you are sending an item through courier, please include courier instructions to call the front desk at 416-978-8977 so they can accept the package. Without this phone call, the front desk is unable to accept any packages. If there are any issues with delivery, please call us at (416) 978-3711 or get in touch using the contact us form at the end of this page.

Congratulations! You just took a huge step in creating a sustainable and just world for all. Visit our Roots & Shoots page and start your journey. Questions? Use the contact us form at the end of this page and a member of our team will get back to you within 5 business days.

Get in touch with us using the contact us form at the bottom of this page and we’ll help you get everything you need.

No, you don’t. What package you get is up to you! Our Chimp Guardian comes in two varieties – a digital version (no plush) and a physical package (plush included!). You can decide which package you’d prefer during the purchase process.

It is a one time payment for your choice of a virtual or physical package. Chimp Guardians receive a postcard from Dr. Jane, a plush toy chimpanzee (physical package only), a biography of a rescued chimp (choose from 3 options) and a fact sheet about JGI’s Tchimpounga sanctuary. If you’d like to support our work on a monthly basis, you can Join Team Goodall and take action for our planet all year long.

At this time, we only offer the full Chimp Guardian package. But we’ll keep this in mind for future product offerings!

Environmental sustainability is at the heart of everything we do. We can’t advocate for a more just and sustainable world without putting in the work ourselves. With this in mind, the plush toys we offer are produced in the USA by a socially responsible company (Wild Republic). The fill in the plush are made of 100% recycled water bottles, a biodegradable alternative is used to plastic inner packs, and only 50% of the plush line contains beads (which are regrind beads made of recycled materials).

While we don’t send regular updates about adopted chimpanzees, we do send quarterly reports about the chimpanzees at Tchimpounga sanctuary to our monthly donors. In these reports you will learn about how your chimpanzee is doing plus all of the other incredible work happening at our sanctuary. If you’d like to receive these regular updates you can sign up to become a monthly donor for as little as $5 a month!

Chimpanzees are omnivores, meaning they eat both plants and animals. In fact, Dr. Jane Goodall was the first person to observe chimpanzees eating other animals when she saw them using sticks to extract termites and also hunting smaller mammals such as monkeys. Until then, chimpanzees were believed to be herbivores, like most other great apes. Most of a chimpanzee’s diet is made up of fruits, seeds, nuts, leaves, flowers and insects.

While some pictures or videos may make it seem like chimpanzees are friendly to humans this is not the case. Chimpanzees are wild animals and can be unpredictable and aggressive. And despite being our closest living relatives, sharing 99.9% of our DNA, they’re much bigger and stronger than humans. It may seem like they’re friendly in pictures of chimpanzees interacting with humans, but it’s more than likely that these are trained professionals who know how to safely interact with wildlife.

Images of chimpanzees interacting with people outside of trained professionals can actually be harmful. These types of images can lead to greater demand for the illegal pet and wildlife trade. We encourage you learn how you can flag harmful animal content on social media, and only engage with images that protect and honour animals of all species. Find out how!

Of course we can! We love to help the next generation of Janes. Start by visiting our section All about Chimpanzees. Here you’ll find more about what chimpanzees eat, how they communicate, what makes a chimpanzee and monkey different (hint: it has to do with a tail!) and so much more. Once you’re finished there, check out our Gombe page to discover all the incredible research that started when Jane entered the rainforest over 60 years ago.

In the meantime, here are 5 quick facts about chimpanzees that might help:

• Chimpanzees are human’s closest living relatives, sharing over 99.9% of our DNA
• Chimpanzees make and use tools – this was first observed by Jane when she saw a chimpanzee she called David Greybeard use a blade of grass to fish termites
• A chimpanzee family group is called a troop (and we like to think you’re part of our troop!)
• Every individual chimpanzee has his or her own distinctive pant-hoot, so that the caller can be identified with precision.
• At the turn of the century, over one million chimpanzees lived in the wild. Now there are less than 300,000 because of human-caused habitat loss, disease, the illegal wildlife trade, and poaching.

Chimpanzees are at risk of COVID-19. Diseases represent one of the main threats to non-human primates after habitat loss and hunting. Over the past 60 years, great ape populations across Africa have experienced fatal epidemics of common human borne diseases such as the human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV), the human metapneumovirus (HMPV) and human rhinovirus C. While there is yet to be a confirmed case of COVID-19 in wild primates, their close relation to humans is a serious cause for concern. Because of this, we’ve taken extraordinary precautions at JGI’s Tchimpounga sanctuary to ensure the safety of the rescued chimpanzees and other wildlife that call it home.

Even though Chimpanzees don’t live in Canada, there are still so many things you can do to help them! Here are our top 3:

1. Recycle your cell phone: Resource mining for cell phones happens in a key natural habitat for chimpanzees, driving illegal hunting, destroying habitats, and triggering civil conflict. But 99% of materials found in cell phones can be recovered when they’re recycled. So by keeping your cell phone for as long as possible and recycling it when it’s no longer working you’re helping chimpanzees
2. Share with care: The types of images you share of chimpanzees can help or hurt them. Images of chimpanzees dressed in clothes, kept as pets, or used for entertainment can all fuel the illegal wildlife and pet trade. We encourage you to flag harmful content and never engage with it. Find out more on our Forever Wild page.
3. Support our work: Our work is built on long term solutions that protect animals by empowering people. When you support our work you are directly contributing to initiatives that help chimpanzees whether it’s through our rescue and sanctuary, Tchimpounga, awareness building campaigns, or through a community-centred conservation program. Support us today.

The threats to great apes in the natural world are many. Sadly, humans are a leading cause of Chimpanzee population declines. But that means we can be part of the solution.

Current threats to Chimpanzees include: habitat loss, the commercial bushmeat and illegal exotic pet trade, infectious diseases such as Ebola Fever, and armed conflict.

All of these problems have deep roots, including human population growth, the staggering scale of poverty and disease, climate change, lack of economic opportunity, political indifference and corruption, conflict, and scant community involvement in managing natural resources. To begin to make a difference in the face of such fundamental challenges requires a holistic, multi-pronged response. That’s why JGIC is focused on community-centred conservation. Putting local people at the heart of the solutions. Find out more about community-centred conservation.

As animal lovers ourselves, we truly understand your concerns about the mistreatment of wildlife.

Unfortunately, due to her incredibly busy schedule Jane is not able to speak out on each of these scenarios individually. These wider systemic issues and their impact on all wildlife are at the core of everything we do through awareness building initiatives, community-centred conservation, and youth empowerment. We encourage you to continue to speak out when you see these cases of animal mistreatment. Find your local government representatives, start a petition, take action in a way that’s accessible to you. Like Jane says, “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make”

JGI Canada offers exclusive trips for our donors to visit the projects they support with destinations including Tanzania, Republic of Congo, or Uganda. These trips are currently on hold due to COVID-19 and will only be resumed when it’s deemed safe for travellers, staff, and the communities we visit. Email info@janegoodall.ca if you have questions!

While this is not currently within the immediate scope of our organisational focus, Dr. Goodall has spoken out on the topic of alternative medical testing on several occasions – some examples of this linked below.

It is difficult to find a holistic overview on the progress made on animal testing in recent years, but we hope these articles and resources provide some useful information.

1. https://janegoodall.ca/our-stories/animal-testing-germany/
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDaMPJVVssI
3. https://animaljustice.ca/blog/medical-testing-animals-brief-history
4. https://www.humanesociety.org/all-our-fights/taking-suffering-out-science

If this is something you are passionate about, we encourage you to get involved and be the change you want to see in the world.

We love working with the incredible members of our community. When it comes to collaborations we look for partners that align with our conservation work and our values. To get in touch with us about a collaboration use the contact us form at the bottom of this page. Our team will do their best to get back to you in 5 business days.

Yes, we do! Head to our new online gift shop to find downloadable items, eCards, and our flagship product: Chimp Guardian (digital and physical packages available). Every physical product is designed with sustainability at the forefront. The funds raised from every item purchased go directly to community-centred conservation, awareness building initiatives, and chimpanzee protection. Thank you for supporting us and visit often – we’re always working on new items for you to rep!

If you’ve received an email from us recently, scroll to the bottom and you should see a link to unsubscribe. If that doesn’t work, get in touch with us using the contact form at the bottom of this page. A member of our team will get back to you within 5 business days.

Use the contact us form at the end of this page to let us know and we’ll remove you from our mailing list. Please be sure to include your full name and address in your request. A member of our team will get back to you and process your request within 5 business days.

Jane Goodall Institute of Canada’s charity number is: CBN: 14053 0916 RR0001. This number can also be found on our website at the bottom corner.

First of all a high five & big thank you for being part of our community! If you’re interested in volunteering with us, use the form at the bottom of this page to get in touch. Make sure you share your area of expertise and how you’d like to lend your skills – whether it be volunteering at an event or helping out with digital services. We can’t wait to hear from you!