Founded in 1987, East York Learning Experience (EYLE) helps adults improve their reading, writing, basic math, and digital literacy skills. The charity reports that 42% of Canadian adults between 16-65 years old have low literacy skills that can prevent them from applying for jobs, reading the newspaper, writing letters, filling out forms, and banking. EYLE’s programming consists of one-on-one tutoring sessions with trained, volunteer tutors to improve literacy and numeracy skills. Since 1987, EYLE has helped over 1,100 people improve their lives.

A Charity Intelligence 2020 Top 10 Impact Charity

Through its education services, EYLE manages 40-50 active learner/tutor pairs at a time. EYLE’s services are offered free of charge to clients and follow the Ontario Adult Literacy Curriculum Framework. After a student leaves the program, EYLE follows up with them at the 3, 6 and 12-month mark to monitor their success. Based on a student’s background, former education, work experience, goals and literacy assessment results, staff develop an individualized training plan for each client. The charity teaches reading, writing, numeracy, critical thinking, oral communication, and computer use/digital skills. EYLE hopes to provide students with the foundation for learning other skills, allowing them to find and maintain a job.

EYLE reports that it operates efficiently by using a modest budget to support a team of volunteers. EYLE has a team of 60 volunteer tutors that give an estimated $130,000 in tutoring hours each year. The charity reports that if it were to pay its volunteers, its costs would rise by 87%. The volunteers allow the charity to operate with only three paid staff. Serving approximately 90 people per year, ELYE serves 30 clients for every paid staff. To further keep costs down, EYLE operates out of a low-rent facility that has been designed specifically for nonprofits.

East York Learning Experience is a small charity with $89k in donations and special events revenue in F2021. The charity also received $124k in government funding, representing 58% of revenues. Administrative costs are 6% of revenues. The charity did not report any fundraising costs in F2021, resulting in total overhead spending of 6%. For every dollar donated, 94 cents go to the cause, which is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. EYLE has funding reserves of $159k. The charity could cover 114% or 13 months of program costs with reserves.

Charity Intelligence sent an update of this report to East York Learning Experience for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 23, 2021 by Sydney Olexa.