Calgary Food Bank

About Calgary Food Bank:

Founded in 1982, Calgary Food Bank is an emergency food distribution hub which collects and distributes food to individuals, families, single-parents and homeless people. Calgary Food Bank runs programs targeting various age groups and needs, such as an emergency food hamper program, the food link program supporting local agencies, a milk program for children and families and hampers for the homeless. The charity reports that in Alberta, one in ten individuals experience food insecurity and that in Calgary, 47% of its clients are families with children. In F2016, the food bank recorded 68,018 unique clients.

Calgary Food Bank’s emergency food hampers contain the equivalent of one week of food for each person in need for the household and meet Canada’s Food Guide standards. In addition to the hamper, the food bank provides referrals to local agencies to help address the underlying reasons for food insecurity. In F2016, the charity distributed 65,992 emergency food hampers and provided 7,920 client referrals.

The Food Link program provides quality food and supplies to 215 Calgary agencies and community programs. This allows the agencies to focus their resources on programs instead of sourcing food. In F2016, Calgary Food Bank distributed 3.0 million pounds of food through the program, saving agencies an estimated $6.0 million.

Calgary Food Bank engages in food rescue, saving viable food from retailers, which would otherwise be thrown out. This food is re-distributed to its clients through its distribution program. In F2016, with the help of 434 food industry partners (including retailers, producers and transportation companies), it saved and distributed 4.8m pounds of food.

Its Weekends and More program provides food insecure children with bags of food to support them over the weekend. In F2016, the program was run in 10 schools and 5,059 bags of food were distributed. The food bank reported that 79% of participants improved class participation and 59% improved academic performance a tremendous amount or quite a bit.

Charity Intelligence has reviewed Calgary Food Bank since 2007 and has consistently found Calgary Food Bank to be a high-rated food bank delivering high charity impact. Calgary Food Bank is included in Ci's Canadian Charity Impact Fund. 

Financial Review:

Calgary Food Bank is one of Canada's Major 100 charities, receiving monetary donations of $9.4m along with $27.1m in donated food in F2016. Administrative costs are 3% of total revenues and fundraising costs are 2% of total donations. For every dollar donated to the charity, 95 cents goes towards its programs, falling within Ci’s reasonable range. The charity has total funding reserves of $6.0m. Excluding the cost of donated food, Calgary Food Bank’s funding reserves cover program costs for 1 year.

This report is an update and is currently being reviewed by Calgary Food Bank. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated August 8, 2017 by Josh Lam.