Founded in 1992, Fresh Start Recovery Centre (Fresh Start) is a live-in alcohol and drug addiction treatment centre for men in Calgary, Alberta. Fresh Start reports that 90% of Canadians who need treatment do not receive it. In addition to this, it says that 13.6% of Canadians are high-risk drinkers, and 8% of hospitalizations in Canada are a result of substance abuse. Fresh Start recognizes that for recovery to be successful, family and friends must also be able to heal. Therefore, Fresh Start offers treatment for men and a family healing program.

Fresh Start’s 40,000 square foot home has a total of 50 primary treatment beds. The house has 26 residents’ rooms, counselling rooms, a meditation room, a gymnasium, a dining hall, a weight room, a games room, a movie theatre, a laundry room, a wellness clinic, and more. The building is big, vibrant, and designed to feel like a home to create an ideal setting for men and their families to recover.

Fresh Start offers a 14 to 16-week program with one-on-one counselling, group healing, physical training, nutritious meals, and other supports. The program is based on the 12-step abstinence model of recovery, which focuses on a continued pursuit of abstinence. In 2019, 167 men entered Fresh Start’s 12-step live-in program. This is a 27% increase from the 132 men who entered the program in 2018; 2019 marked the highest number of men served in Fresh Start's history. 

Fresh Start’s family healing program helps people who are close with an addict deal with the effects of the addiction and learn how to adapt while the addict is recovering. The program runs one night a week for two hours over a five-week period. In 2019, 97 family members were enrolled in the program.

In August 2018, Fresh Start launched its Eleven-Eleven food truck. This project helps Fresh Start to celebrate recovery, educate people about addiction, and generate funds for the charity by selling food. The Eleven-Eleven food truck received coverage from local media and it increased revenues to $28k in 2019 from $19k in 2018. The food truck had an operating loss of ($26k) in 2019 and ($89k) in 2018. Fresh Start also plans to open a recovery cafe with a similar business model. 

In 2019, Fresh Start completed the construction of two residential buildings that began construction in 2017 with $7.5m in investment funding from the Government of Alberta. Together, the buildings provide 46 post-treatment beds. The facilities offer supports to integrate people in recovery back into community living.

Fresh Start Recovery Centre is a ­­­­medium-sized charity, with total donations of $1.6m in F2019. Administrative costs are 4% of revenues. Fundraising costs are 35% of donations, an increase from 14% in F2018. This means overhead costs are 39%. The increase in fundraising costs was driven by a fundraising event on June 15, 2019, starring Russell Brand. The event created global exposure for the charity but did not    For every $1 donated to the charity, 61 cents go to programs. This is outside of Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

Fresh Start has funding reserves of $544k, which can cover two months of program costs at the F2019 level. This indicates a need for funding.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Fresh Start Recovery Centre for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on June 3, 2020 by Eric Jose.