The Boundless School
STAR RATINGCi's Star Rating is calculated based on the following independent metrics: |
✔+
FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY
Audited financial statements for current and previous years available on the charity’s website.
A+
RESULTS REPORTING
Grade based on the charity's public reporting of the work it does and the results it achieves.
High
DEMONSTRATED IMPACT
The demonstrated impact per dollar Ci calculates from available program information.
NEED FOR FUNDING
Charity's cash and investments (funding reserves) relative to how much it spends on programs in most recent year.
90%
CENTS TO THE CAUSE
For a dollar donated, after overhead costs of fundraising and admin/management (excluding surplus) 90 cents are available for programs.
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OVERVIEW
About The Boundless School:
The Boundless School was founded as an outdoor adventure centre for at-risk youth in 1984. Since becoming a charity in 1989, The Boundless School has worked to motivate 20,000 students to succeed academically, physically, and socially. The charity can award high school credits, allowing teens to achieve academic success in an “exquisite” non-traditional learning environment. Boundless has two buildings on 600 acres of land in Palmer Rapids, Ontario. The property includes 3,000 feet of Madawaska River shoreline.
A Charity Intelligence 2021 Top 10 Canadian Impact Charity
In F2021, The Boundless School worked with 113 high schoolers from low-income families who were not on pace to graduate on time. These students had all experienced long-term school interruptions and struggled with diagnosed mental illness or learning challenges. 14% had criminal histories and 21% had been suspended or expelled from their normal school.
The charity’s boarding school program operates between September and March. Students participate in 30-day (2 credits) or 40-day (3 credits) sessions, working to earn the 30.0 credits needed to graduate high school. The sessions cost $250 per day but students who are referred by Boundless’ community partners receive a full scholarship. In F2021, Boundless delivered 2,145 student days and 98% of students completed the program.
During the summer, in order to help fund its boarding school, Boundless runs multiple 13-day sessions where teens who can pay the tuition fee earn a high school credit outdoors.
Boundless piloted two new programs in F2021: a job training program with 44 participants, and an indigenous focused program in partnership with other first nations charities.
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Results and Impact
In F2021, 26 students completed their high school diploma at Boundless, increasing their chances of future success and financial independence.
In F2018, Boundless started an independent assessment of its long-term impact on students. It surveyed 52 students more than a year after they left Boundless and found that 49 had completed their high school diploma, while one was still working on it. Only 19 of those students completed their diploma at Boundless, suggesting that Boundless had a lasting effect on its students. Boundless students had a 94% high school diploma completion rate, which is above the national average.
Charity Intelligence has evaluated The Boundless School and found the charity to have High impact per dollar spent.
Impact Rating: High
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Finances
The Boundless School is a small charity, receiving $857k in donations in F2021. The charity also received $347k in tuition fees (16% of revenues) and $855k in government funding (40% of revenues). Administrative costs are 4% of revenues and fundraising costs are 6% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 10%. For every dollar donated, 90 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. Funding reserves of $2.3m can cover 1.9 years of annual program costs.
This charity report is an update that has been sent to The Boundless School for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.
Updated on August 10, 2021 by Asha McMullin.
Financial Review
Fiscal year ending March
|
2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Administrative costs as % of revenues | 4.2% | 3.3% | 2.8% |
| Fundraising costs as % of donations | 5.5% | 6.7% | 6.8% |
| Total overhead spending | 9.8% | 10.0% | 9.6% |
| Program cost coverage (%) | 194.8% | 70.9% | 61.3% |
Summary Financial StatementsAll figures in $s |
2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Donations | 856,984 | 778,227 | 933,933 |
| Government funding | 855,493 | 733,533 | 666,612 |
| Fees for service | 346,901 | 1,007,876 | 1,072,112 |
| Investment income | 34,425 | 13,621 | 11,449 |
| Other income | 47,225 | 2,789 | 1,709 |
| Total revenues | 2,141,028 | 2,536,046 | 2,685,815 |
| Program costs | 1,157,203 | 2,062,925 | 2,154,605 |
| Administrative costs | 89,307 | 82,321 | 75,300 |
| Fundraising costs | 47,406 | 52,200 | 63,500 |
| Other costs | 180 | 130 | 164 |
| Total spending | 1,294,096 | 2,197,576 | 2,293,569 |
| Cash flow from operations | 846,932 | 338,470 | 392,246 |
| Capital spending | 13,743 | 191,318 | 133,706 |
| Funding reserves | 2,254,086 | 1,462,952 | 1,320,836 |
Note: Administrative costs may be understated as Ci cannot accurately allocate expenses with the provided information, notably, there is no allocation of salary or employee benefits between admin and program costs.
Salary Information
$350k + |
0 |
$300k - $350k |
0 |
$250k - $300k |
0 |
$200k - $250k |
0 |
$160k - $200k |
0 |
$120k - $160k |
1 |
$80k - $120k |
0 |
$40k - $80k |
5 |
< $40k |
4 |
Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2021
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Comments & Contact
Comments added by the Charity:
Charity Contact
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tel: 416-951-7059