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Charity Intelligence conducted a survey of our website visitors in November and December 2016 to better understand how Canadians are using the information we provide. 
 
class=”download-report-button” images/viewsreports/Survey-Results-2016.pdf Download our Report
 

 
 
If you find Charity Intelligence’s research useful in your giving, please consider donating to support our work. Being entirely funded by donors like you maintains our independence and objectivity to help Canadians be informed in their giving. Canadians donate over $17 billion each year. This giving could achieve tremendous results. We hope Charity Intelligence’s research helps Canadians give better.
Legal disclaimer:
The information in this report was prepared by Charity Intelligence Canada and its independent analysts from publicly-available information. Charity Intelligence and its analysts have made endeavours to ensure that the data in this report is accurate and complete but accepts no liability.
The views and opinions expressed are to inform donors in matters of public interest. Views and opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, organization, individual or anyone or anything. Any dispute arising from your use of this website or viewing the material hereon shall be governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario, without regard to any conflict of law provisions. 

Tackling a hot donor issue, here is the data, findings, and Charity Intelligence’s opinion that charity salaries don’t help in finding good charities to support. 
 
class=”download-report-button” images/viewsreports/Ci-position-on-Charity-Salaries-2015-data.pdf Download Our Report
 
Salaries #_edn1″ name=”_ednref1 [i] paid to charity staff is a hot topic with donors. Nothing provokes more sound and fury from donors than charity salaries. Some donors hold strong beliefs about whether charity staff should or shouldn’t get paid. Yet the data isn’t revealing any significant indicators about what makes a “good charity”. Recent comments show a lack of understanding of Charity Intelligence’s thoughts on charity salaries. This brief hopefully clears up Charity Intelligence’s findings and opinions on charity salaries.
Charity Intelligence does NOT use staff salaries in our charity rating. We report the salary information straight from the CRA Charities Directorate reports because donors ask for it. Salary information is at the very bottom of our reports because we feel it is the least useful piece of information to giving intelligently and we do not use it in our charity analysis. Simply put, salary information is not a useful tool in finding “good charities” or intelligent giving.
To the many donors who contact Charity Intelligence and in interviews, Charity Intelligence consistently tries to provide donors with context and perspective, to weigh other factors, and take a holistic approach rather than a single focus on overhead costs or charity salaries.
In dealing with strongly held personal beliefs, starting with facts can help establish solid ground.
2015 Key Facts

• 39,917 registered Canadian charities reported staff expenses (47% of registered charities), 44,525 registered charities reported no staff expenses. These charities would be entirely run by volunteers.

• In 2015 charities reported 1,709,249 full-time staff and 1,985,623 part-time staff.

• In 2015 full-time staff compensation was $108.6 billion. The average salary for full-time staff paid in Canada’s charity sector is $63,582. This average covers full-time staff in all charity sectors: doctors, teachers, managers, medical researchers, janitors, fundraisers, and administrative support. Charities working in different sectors will have different labour costs. Some charity workers are unionized, some are not. Where Statistics Canada segregates wages into different industries, the reported charity data just lumps all wages across all industry.

• 57% of the charity sector’s total expenses are for staff salaries and benefits – see Chart 1. ($135.8 billion paid in total staff salaries relative to $240.1 billion in total charity expenses). This percent looks low. Charities are mostly service organizations. It’s a people operation to do charity work. Perhaps our opinion is because we focus on a small subset of large charities or perhaps it shows inadequate cost allocation in filing annual returns. On the total 2015 annual returns, charities report 16% of total spending in a catch-all “other” category. This is sloppy cost allocation. Salaries may be hidden in “other” costs.

 
#_ednref1″ name=”_edn1  
 
 

 
 
If you find Charity Intelligence’s research useful in your giving, please consider donating to support our work. Being entirely funded by donors like you maintains our independence and objectivity to help Canadians be informed in their giving. Canadians donate over $17 billion each year. This giving could achieve tremendous results. We hope Charity Intelligence’s research helps Canadians give better.
Legal disclaimer:
The information in this report was prepared by Charity Intelligence Canada and its independent analysts from publicly-available information. Charity Intelligence and its analysts have made endeavours to ensure that the data in this report is accurate and complete but accepts no liability.
The views and opinions expressed are to inform donors in matters of public interest. Views and opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, organization, individual or anyone or anything. Any dispute arising from your use of this website or viewing the material hereon shall be governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario, without regard to any conflict of law provisions. 

The Canadian Red Cross announced 1-year results on its Fort McMurray disaster response. It reports 75% of total funds received are “spent and committed.” Looking into the financial numbers and deferred accounting rules, of this, it looks like 61% of total funds donated are actually spent. 
 
class=”download-report-button” images/viewsreports/Not-so-fast-_-Ci-1-year-donor-report-on-Fort-McMurray.pdf Download Our Report
 
class=”download-report-button” https://www.charityintelligence.ca/images/CRC-One-Year-Donor-Update—annotated-compressed.pdf Download the CRC’s Report
 
Previous Charity Intelligence reports on Fort McMurray:
title=”Update – Fort McMurray May 30 2016″ https://www.charityintelligence.ca/news-and-views/ci-articles?id=215″ rel=”alternate Fort McMurray 6 Month Update – In the most recent three months, Canadian Red Cross received an additional $20 million in donations and spent $21 million. Spending was primarily on Red Cross programs ($16 million). Canadian Red Cross is doing one-to-one needs assessments. So far it has completed 13,310 client assessments, providing 9,000 families with money for temporary housing, rent, mortgage and utility payments. Canadian Red Cross has spent an estimated $187 million – 59% of total funds available – with $130 million remaining for Fort McMurray’s relief and rebuilding. All of these funds have been committed, but commitments may change with new needs emerging – November 3, 2016
https://www.charityintelligence.ca/images/Ci-Fort-McMurray-Update-3-Months-August-2016.pdf” rel=”alternate Fort McMurray 3 Month Update – Canadian Red Cross announced new spending commitments of $92 million. New commitments include $62 million for more Canadian Red Cross programs and $26 million to Fort McMurray’s small and mid-sized businesses. This allocates the full $299 million in donations and matching government funds. Now the challenge is to move from commitments to execution. After fast disaster response in May, spending slowed. To date, $165 million has been spent – 55% of total funds available. Fort McMurray’s local charities haven’t seen much of the $50 million promised in June. We hope this changes, quickly – September 29, 2016
images/viewsreports/Fort-McMurray-Fires—Disaster-Response-Update-June-30-2016.pdf” rel=”alternate Fort McMurray 2 Month Update – The disaster phase is over. Fort McMurray now transitions to the relief and rebuilding phase. To date, 45% of donations and grants spent, Canadian Red Cross has an estimated $141 million to spend. This report gives donors a review of the disaster response with comparisons to other Canadian disasters Alberta Floods, Lac Megantic and Slave Lake, and brief updates on a few of Fort McMurray’s local charities – July 7, 2016
https://www.charityintelligence.ca/news-and-views/ci-articles?id=206″ rel=”alternate Fort McMurray Local Charities get $50 million commitment from Canadian Red Cross –  June 3, 2016
title=”Update – Fort McMurray May 30 2016″ https://www.charityintelligence.ca/news-and-views/ci-articles?id=198″ rel=”alternate Transition from Disaster to Recovery – May 30, 2016
https://www.charityintelligence.ca/research/charity-profiles?id=205″ rel=”alternate Fort McMurray Fires: Where to Give – May 5, 2016
 

 
If you find Charity Intelligence’s research useful in your giving, please consider donating to support our work. Being entirely funded by donors like you maintains our independence and objectivity to help Canadians be informed in their giving. Canadians donate over $17 billion each year. This giving could achieve tremendous results. We hope Charity Intelligence’s research helps Canadians give better.
Legal disclaimer:
The information in this report was prepared by Charity Intelligence Canada and its independent analysts from publicly-available information. Charity Intelligence and its analysts have made endeavours to ensure that the data in this report is accurate and complete but accepts no liability.
The views and opinions expressed are to inform donors in matters of public interest. Views and opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, organization, individual or anyone or anything. Any dispute arising from your use of this website or viewing the material hereon shall be governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario, without regard to any conflict of law provisions. 

font-weight: 400; In the Muttart Foundation’s Talking About Charities 2013 survey, Canadians continue to give charities low ratings for the degree to which charities report how donations are used, fundraising costs and the impact of programs. Today’s donors want more information.  Transparency and accountability matter more than ever.
font-weight: 400; Donor accountability goes hand-in-hand with financial transparency. To objectively gauge donor accountability, Charity Intelligence grades a charity’s social results reporting. This social results reporting grade has the highest weighting in our charity star rating, accounting for 40%.
font-weight: 400; The goal of this work is to help promote and encourage better reporting by charities on their social results. With better reporting, Charity Intelligence believes donors will be better informed.
font-weight: 400; Charity Intelligence reviews a charity’s publicly-posted information in its annual report, website and current newsletters and scores each charity on 26 questions related to its mission, strategy, problem it is trying to solve, activities, outcomes and impact it achieves. Each charity receives, in confidence, the breakdown of grades over the 26 questions used for scoring.
font-weight: 400; Working with charities since 2012 on this project we’ve listened to their feedback. Today there are 3 different scoring guides:

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font-weight: 400; Additionally, for those writing a charity’s annual report, this is a great resource:
font-weight: 400; https://smith.queensu.ca/centres/centre-for-governance/voluntary-sector-reporting-awards/resources.php Queen’s University, Voluntary Sector Reporting’s Best Practices Guide in Charity Annual Reporting
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After 6 years, a 18% improvement in charity reporting

font-weight: 400; Charity Intelligence is seeing improvements in charity reporting. In 2018, we measured a 18% improvement over 2013 in grades. This is on 760 charities with donor reporting grades. In 2016, we measured a 12.4% improvement over 2013 in grades.
font-weight: 400; In 2013, Charity Intelligence graded 453 charities on social results, covering a diverse range of sectors; from hospital foundations to food banks, from fundraising charities to homeless shelters. To see our 2013 results, https://www.charityintelligence.ca/images/2013%20srrs%20recap.pdf  click here.
font-weight: 400; Results reporting is a new area of charity analysis.
font-weight: 400; For those interested, here is https://vimeo.com/138175306  Kate Ruff’s discussion on charity analysis, with a brief history of financial accounting. Her work was also published in Stanford Social Innovation Review on why we need skilled analysts to improve social capital markets,  https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_next_frontier_in_social_impact_measurement_isnt_measurement_at_all “The Next Frontier in Social Impact Measurement Isn’t Measurement at All”
font-weight: 400; To read Charity Intelligence’s first report on social results, including how Canadian charities compare with British charities:

Charity Intelligence’s 2013 Findings on Social Results Reporting

In 2013 Charity Intelligence (Ci) continued its work to help promote and encourage better reporting by charities on their social results. In 2012, Ci conducted research into charity reporting to understand better the information gaps reported by Canadian donors in how charities use donations, the impact of charities’ work, and information about the programs and services charities deliver. Following up on this research, during 2013, Ci scored 453 charities on social results, covering a diverse range of sectors, from hospital foundations and other fundraising charities to food banks and homeless shelters. Ci will soon be including results reporting of over 400 charities on our online charity profiles and charity ratings.
Key findings:

Scoring tool is unclear / do not understand some aspect(s)
• Charity believed that Ci missed key information when scoring
• Why should we put this information together for Charity Intelligence?
• Why does Charity Intelligence only look at charities’ websites?
• Our charity is unique / different and cannot be scored like others

Positive feedback:

Read More

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If you find Charity Intelligence’s research useful in your giving, please consider donating to support our work. Being entirely funded by donors like you maintains our independence and objectivity to help Canadians be informed in their giving. Canadians donate over $17 billion each year. This giving could achieve tremendous results. We hope Charity Intelligence’s research helps Canadians give better.
Legal disclaimer:
The information in this report was prepared by Charity Intelligence Canada and its independent analysts from publicly-available information. Charity Intelligence and its analysts have made endeavours to ensure that the data in this report is accurate and complete but accepts no liability.
The views and opinions expressed are to inform donors in matters of public interest. Views and opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, organization, individual or anyone or anything. Any dispute arising from your use of this website or viewing the material hereon shall be governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario, without regard to any conflict of law provisions.