Fresh Start Recovery Centre

About Fresh Start Recovery Centre:

Founded in 1992, Fresh Start Recovery Centre (Fresh Start) treats men with alcohol and drug addictions with the goal of restoring them to productive family and community members.

Fresh Start has a 12-week abstinence-based residential treatment centre that uses the AA 12-step recovery model and the Family Systems Method. The program is highly structured, with progress testing, individual and group counselling, as well as financial and family reintegration. Participants are also required to adhere to curfews, chores and meditation schedules. Its current capacity is 50 beds in phase 1, 10 beds in phase 2 and 14 beds in phase 3. In F2015, 79% of the men completed their 12-week program, which is close to the 81% completion rate in F2014. In F2015, Fresh Start had 214 men through its program, and also reports that 51% of the men who completed their programs in F2015 were clean and sober after one year, which is 3% higher than the 48% reported in F2014. For F2015, Fresh Start helped 86 men recover their lives for a cost of $24,380 - one of the lowest cost for success rates in addiction recovery in Canada.

Fresh Start also offers a 5-week Family Healing Program to support family members and friends who have been affected by addiction. In F2015, 58 men and women participated in the program, with 57 people completing the full program.

In 2013, Success Markets Inc. studied Fresh Start’s impact on its community. It found that Fresh Start has a social return on investment of $23 for every $1 invested in the charity. Charity Intelligence has reviewed Fresh Start since 2007. It is consistently a high rated charity with high charity impact. Fresh Start is included in Charity Intelligence's Impact Fund for donors looking to help recovery and address one root cause of homelessness.

Financial Review:

Fresh Start Recovery Centre is a medium-sized charity, with donations of $1.3m in F2015. Its administrative costs are 6% of revenues and its fundraising costs are 9% of donations. For every $1 donated to the charity, 85 cents is put towards its programs, falling within Ci’s reasonable range. The charity has funding reserves of ($501k) due to $1.3m in outstanding bank demand loans.

This charity report is an update that is being reviewed by Fresh Start Recovery Centre. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 19, 2016 by Lynn Tay.