March 2009

Jim Hilborn: The man with a pioneering spirit
From launching publishing firsts to developing North America’s first electronic online newsletters, new ventures are always calling his name. By Billy Sharma

Jim Hilborn can’t seem to stop exploring new frontiers. He loves to break new ground and take on new challenges. It’s probably because his Home Room teacher in Grade 10, Raymond Clovis Gagné, a person who inspired Jim, told him that he had a writing skill that should be developed.
Mr. Gagné wrote: “Ars longa, vita bravis” (translated as: Life is short, art is long) in Jim’s yearbook. Jim took it to heart and makes a point of seizing opportunity every day.

Successful ventures
I like to interview people who have not only contributed to this great industry but are passionate about what they do, so Jim is certainly a fitting subject. Over the years, he has launched and been involved with many important business ventures, including Canada’s first newsletter on personal financial planning—the most successful business journal ever published by Southam—The Moneyletter. Jim was also one of the people behind the success of the Web site, Charity Village, and is now the publisher of Canadian Fundraising & Philanthropy, and North America’s first electronic online newsletter targeted at the nonprofit sector, Canadian FundRaiser eNEWS. Jim’s background and achievements are astounding. As he explains:

“My former partner Charlie Law and I launched a number of Canadian publishing firsts, all of them paid-subscription, business-to-business publications without advertising support. They all depended on powerful direct mail subscription promotion packages for their viability. From CPI Management Service, the first weekly newsletter for the Canadian chemical process industries, to Eco/Log Week, the first weekly Canadian newsletter on environmental protection and control and a few dozen others, all firsts … for Canadian federal and provincial government officials, for dentists and for a wide range of business and industrial sectors.

“All these, and a number of others, were groundbreaking new information services that relied heavily on powerful and efficient direct mail promotion. I’m not certain that we broke a great deal of new ground in the marketing area, but our total focus — every morning — was a visit to the mail room as soon as the mail arrived, to count the orders. We lived and breathed direct mail subscription. We mailed millions of pieces of direct mail to bring in the subscriptions, and got pretty good at it.
“When we got the ball rolling, we began to cross-promote and market one segment of publications to the other, offering books, special reports and annual conferences. The income generated by our cross-marketing activities was key to our survival.”

And then just as suddenly there was a complete shift in emphasis.

Sea change
Jim and Charlie sold their interest in the business newsletters to the Southam organization and after a ten year period producing client and prospect newsletters for a range of business sectors, Jim switched to working in the charitable sector.

“This was a sea change for me,” he admits. “I was almost completely unaware of the different mindsets of the two worlds: balance sheet vs. profit/loss, mission vs. profit, budget vs. ROI … and much more.”

Today, Jim knows a lot about fundraising from up close. Back in high school in Ottawa, he was manager of the Key Club’s annual car wash. Later, he worked as a raffle organizer for a children’s camp north of Toronto. Twenty-five years ago, he was the originator of the first ever (to the best of his knowledge) Canoe-A-Thon to raise money for an elevator in his church. He’s also been a member of the board and past chairman of Foster Parents Plan of Canada. Most recently, he has been the chair of a $20 million capital campaign for the Toronto United Church Council. Jim has also taken on a fair bit of risk in his life. He explains:

“I have been an entrepreneur since 1967. Any real entrepreneur knows what this means. I have known great financial success and devastating financial failure, and my family and I have made great monetary sacrifices in the process. It is fine now, but at times, it has been very difficult for the people around me. I have finally come to respect and appreciate the Canadian banking system, but it has been a long, dark, boggy, sweaty, dirty road to get there.”

Jim was born into what was previously a traditional mining family in Noranda, Quebec. His mother was a miner’s daughter. She broke the mold when she married Jim’s Dad, a pharmacist. The family moved to Ottawa when Jim was barely a year old.

Career path
At seventeen, Jim studied at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and graduated as a chemical engineer. His first paid, full-time job was as a paint chemist at the Canadian Industries Ltd. Paints Research Laboratory on Castlefield Avenue in Toronto. Jim certainly has colourful memories of the experience.

“Most of my time was spent competing with my mates to create horrible practical jokes that would be (a) undetectable as to the source, and (b) very messy. We rarely succeeded on the first point, but had great successes on the second; a paints laboratory being a rich source of pigments, solvents and resins for the job. I made some great friends in those irresponsible days; no one ever got seriously hurt; and in addition to rendering a great deal of clothing unusable, we also (in between the pranks) did some great work.

“It was in those years that my interest in writing began to peak. On one occasion, my frustrated supervisor commented, ‘Hilborn, this resin analysis report is fascinating and well-written, but otherwise a piece of trash. We don’t weigh these things. We read them in the misguided hope that we may learn something from your efforts here.’

“Later again, at my next job in a plastics extrusion plant run by the Borden Chemical Company, I quickly ended up editing and rewriting the monthly reports that our company would send to head office in Massachusetts. After I left Borden to join the Southam organization as editor of one of its technical business journals, the Borden president hired me for some years on a freelance basis to write his speeches.

“My first marriage to Nancy Quayle Hilborn lasted 27 years and produced two beautiful children, Peter and Jennifer, who in turn, with their spouses, have each blessed my life with amazing grandchildren, Megan, Noah, Cameron and Ruby.”
The key turning point happened in 1964.

Editorial opportunity
“While working as a chemical engineer three years out of school, I was reading an issue of the Southam business journal, Canadian Chemical Processing, and noticed a square, one-quarter page ad looking for someone with engineering training to serve as Assistant Editor. It had never occurred to me that someone had to write all of the stuff that I devoured each month! It was a revelation, and I applied immediately. That led to my first publishing job, as editor of Canadian Petroleum magazine.
“One of the great highlights in my writing career was an editorial that I wrote concerning the misuse of provincial crown corporation legislation by the promoters of an oil refinery in Newfoundland. Within a few weeks of its publication, Pierre Trudeau rose in the House of Commons to announce that his government would amend the legislation to close the loophole that was being used. Southam was sued for $8 million in the process, and I was called a ‘concubine of Imperial Oil’ and a ‘prostitute of the petroleum press’. It was wonderful.”

Jim’s greatest delight has come in the second half of his publishing career.

Nonprofit sector
In 1990, Jim started providing information services to the Canadian nonprofit sector, and ten years later, launched one of North America’s first electronic online newsletters, Canadian FundRaiser eNEWS. Even though he admits that it has been a very challenging learning process, he says that the thing to recognize about each of the 85,000 charities in Canada is that they are all on a mission to improve society. That’s what’s different, and why he loves it.

His other great delight was his second marriage to a courageous wife who emigrated from Bahrain to Canada, Paris Dulcie Pinto, a Pakistani of Indian and Portuguese descent. It lasted eleven years and would have gone on much longer had she not died of esophageal cancer on September 4th last year.
Today Jim enjoys his international news services. As he said, “The Web is making anything possible. Our company has exciting plans in that area.”

Jim claims that most of his hobbies are silent.

He enjoys hiking, biking, sailing and cross-country skiing. For his 60th birthday, he and his daughter Jennifer entered the Canadian Ski Marathon from Papineauville to Lachute, Quebec, and have dreamed of doing the Haute Route through the Pyrenees between Spain and France. He spends as much time as possible on his 40-year-old sloop Liberté in the summer.

But above all he loves reading.

“Reading is a huge chunk of my activity every day. I love reading Marcus Aurelius, the novels of Patrick O’Brien, the beautiful writing of E.H. White, and the eloquent speeches of Churchill. And I collect hand-made books produced by Canadian private presses.

“I have been inspired,” Jim says, “by the generosity of spirit of the late Dr. Ed Pearce, (the director of Development, Planned Giving, at Queen’s University) “a genuine gentleman, who welcomed me to the nonprofit sector and believed in me in my darkest moments.” Another source of inspiration is Canadian around-the-world sailor Derek Hatfield.

“If I could do it again, I would try to live my life more carefully so as to hurt fewer people in the process. I would start writing sooner. After my first great financial success, a wise friend told me to pull our children out of school and sail around the world for a few years. I didn’t. I should have. I would the next time. I would ski more, sail more, and go on more canoe camping trips.”
Other people who have had a profound influence on him have been his partner in his first business, Charlie Law, a chemist/writer and generous genius.

“He showed me that we could make our own way, and forgave me my weaknesses,” notes Jim.
And last but not least, his late beloved wife Paris. “She saved me (and my business) from self-destruction on a number of occasions.”

Jim has taught newsletter publishing at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute and was one of the founding members (in the mid-1970s) of The Newsletter Association based in Washington, D.C. Later in 1983, he became the founding president of its Canadian Chapter. He is a genuine pioneer in a landscape of his own creation.

Billy Sharma is president and creative director of Designers Inc., Toronto. He can be reached at 416-203-9787 or by email at: designersinc@sympatico.ca