Canada’s charity sector loses a valued platform in improving transparency, accountability and impact.
April 8, 2016, Imagine Canada shelved its CharityFocus website. CharityFocus was just launched in February 2012. Too young to be gone so soon. The purpose of CharityFocus was to help “transparency in Canada’s charity sector and communicate impact”. It showed donors a charity’s financial information, annual reports, research and evaluation studies to get a well-rounded picture.
CharityFocus’s site was heralded as transforming “government filings into graphs and visuals”, helping charities be transparent to donors and the public. Janet Gadeski of CharityInfo wrote “it’s a welcome, essential contrast to stories and information services that focus on financial ratios, select very few of Canada’s 85,000 charities for analysis, and restrict input from the charities themselves.”
Canada’s charity sector desperately needs better transparency and accountability. In Charity Intelligence’s research on 650 Canadian charities, 136 of Canada’s largest charities with donations over $1 million still do not provide audited financial statements. Each year in Canada, $750 million in giving goes into a dark pool.
Charity Intelligence’s research process can never replicate the scale of CharityFocus’s presentation of government filings. As for its redundancy with the CRA’s Charities Listing new graphics, we feel strongly Canada needs more organizations championing for transparency and accountability, not less. As the voice of Canada’s charities, Imagine Canada’s CharityFocus was an essential tool working within the sector to improve transparency and accountability. As a charity, representing charities, working for charities, Imagine Canada has a closer relationship with charities than the government regulator. Canadians looking for better charity transparency have lost an important program.
On the measuring impact side, CharityFocus’s shut down is devastating. CharityFocus’s portal had charity annual reports, program evaluation and impact assessments. The CRA’s Charity Directory has nothing on communicating impact. Imagine Canada says it will be “working on new partnerships to communicate with Canadians on how charities are making an impact”. Please hurry. Charity Intelligence has published impact reports on just 10 Canadian charities. This is a critical area where there is too much work for any one organization to do alone.
With CharityFocus gone, Canada’s charity sector falls back to the status quo of 2012; accreditation on over 160 charities – an elite few – no tools to help charities accurately file annual returns and, for now, silence on the difference charities make.
We’re often asked how is Charity Intelligence different from Imagine Canada. Charity Intelligence works for donors. Imagine Canada works for charities. Together we strive for Canada’s charitable sector to be more transparent, accountable and focused on results.
For donors who care about charity transparency and accountability, please consider donating to Charity Intelligence. It’s not a sexy area of giving, it’s nuts and bolts, but we believe it is absolutely essential for a healthy charity sector. To see Charity Intelligence’s results in improving transparency and accountability, please read our 2015 annual report.
Posted: April 20, 2016 Kate Bahen kbahen@charityintelligence.ca
References: 
http://upfront.pwc.com/trust/669-making-case-charity http://upfront.pwc.com/trust/669-making-case-charity
http://www.charityinfo.ca/articles/CharityFocus-launches-wants-your-charitys-story http://www.charityinfo.ca/articles/CharityFocus-launches-wants-your-charitys-story
http://www.imaginecanada.ca/resources-and-tools/charity-focus http://www.imaginecanada.ca/resources-and-tools/charity-focus
 

Canadian Charity Impact Fund Selection Criteria

The Canadian Charity Impact Fund (CCIF) is a unique philanthropic donating vehicle started by Charity Intelligence (Ci) and Success Markets Inc. (SMI), a third party impact analysis organization, in 2015. We have undertaken Social Return on Investment (SROI) research on approximately 100 social service charities in Canada that had previously been identified as highly effective charities by existing Ci analysis.
The SROI analysis has resulted in interval and most likely SROI estimates that should be around 70% accurate for each charity, both in total and for the components of the benefits that accrue directly to the charity’s clients as well as to greater Canadian society. These two SROI distribution estimates have been used as the inputs into the selection of the CCIF.
For both the total charity SROI and the beneficiary SROI, three metrics were scored: the best estimate score, a lower bound score representing the likelihood of lower than expected SROI results, and an upside score, representing the likelihood of greater than expected SROI results. A weighted sum of these three metrics gives the overall score and beneficiary only score respectively. The final score is a weighted average of these two scores.
The ten highest scoring charities in our social service sector database were selected for the CCIF, with the proviso that no single sector can have more than three charities. This proviso ensures diversity of programming that aids in reducing the overall downside risk of obtaining lower than expected impact overall.
Best Estimate Score:
The best estimate score ranges from a low of 0 to a high of 100. For each charity it represents where their best estimate lies within the range from the greatest best estimate to the lowest best estimate. The equation is given as follows:

The charity with the highest best-estimate SROI will have a max score of 100 and the charity with the lowest best-estimate SROI will have the minimum score of 0.
Lower Bound Score:
The Lower Bound Score ranges from a low of 0 to a high of 100. For each charity it represents the probability, given the assumption of a 70% accurate interval and a best estimate, that the true SROI is above 5. Charities with greater scores are less likely to be lower impact charities and are thus thought of as less risky donation options than charities with lower scores (and thus a greater probability of having a low SROI).
Upside Score:
The Upside Score ranges from a low of 0 to a high of 100. For each charity, it represents the probability, given the assumption of 70% accurate interval and best estimate, that the true SROI is above 15. Charities with greater scores are more likely to have incredibly high impact than charities with low scores, and are thus viewed as having a very high upside in terms of potential impact.
Beneficiary Score:
For each charity, a Best Estimate, Lower Bound, and Upside Score is calculated, using only the 70% accuracy interval estimates for the SROI that only values direct beneficiary benefits (thus, leaving out benefits to larger society). The beneficiary score is a weighted sum of the three component scores. Both the Best Estimate and Lower Bound are given weights of 4 and the Upside Score is given a weight of 1. Thus, the maximum possible beneficiary score is 900 and the lowest possible is 0.
The weights were determined through a small focus group that was asked which charities they would choose to donate to given a choice from a small set of hypothetical 70% accurate interval SROI estimates. The result of this focus group was that a small set of informed donors strongly consider both best estimates and riskiness in their choices, but that potential upside was not a large component of their decision. For this reason, both the best estimate and risk scores are given four times the weight of the potential upside score at present.
Total Score:
For each charity, the same process taken for the Beneficiary Score was undertaken using the 70% accurate interval estimates for the whole of the charities benefits created, and not just the benefits to direct beneficiaries. The same weights were used to obtain a total score, with a maximum value of 900 and a minimum value of 0.
Selection Score:
The selection score, used to make the final selections for the CCIF was calculated as a weighted average of the Beneficiary and Total Scores. The Beneficiary Score was given a weight of 70% and the Total Score a weight of 30%. The maximum value of the selection score is 900 and the minimum is 0.
https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/charity-intelligence-canada/” target=”_blank Click here to donate to the CCIF and select option 2 on the dropdown menu.