Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold is a 2-star rated charity. It is not financially transparent and has poor results reporting. The charity’s overhead spending is within Ci’s reasonable range. Community Care has $3.7m in reserve funds, which can cover ten months of annual program costs. 

Founded in 1919, Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold (Community Care) aims to help families meet their basic needs and develop self-sufficiency. It runs a food bank, food distribution programs, and various housing and health services. Community Care offers 20 programs and services to support low-income families across St. Catharines and Thorold.

Community Care groups its programs into three main areas: Food Security, Housing Help and Health Support. It does not provide a breakdown of spending on its programs.

Food Security: Community Care collects and distributes food through its food bank programs. The charity provides clients who meet Canada’s low-income cut-off standard with food, clothing, and household goods. The charity has 41 community garden plots to help local families grow fresh produce. Community Care also helps fund Niagara Nutrition Partners, a program offering students snacks, breakfasts, or lunches.

Housing Help: Community Care runs programs to help clients find housing, pay for utilities, and receive referrals to other agencies. Its Housing Help program offers resources and support to clients for rental applications, landlord disputes and referrals to emergency shelters. Through the Ontario Electricity Support Program, Community Care helps low-income households receive credits on their monthly electricity bills.

Health Support: The charity’s medical programs help low-income families access health screenings, prescriptions, and medical devices. Through the Clara Crawford Fund, Community Care offers senior clients up to $500 to pay for glasses, hearing aids, and prescriptions. Community Care also helps low-income families receive eye exams through the Gift of Sight program. The Brushed Aside program assists clients in submitting requests for dentures, fillings, and tooth extractions. At the time of this profile update, the Brushed Aside program is paused due to a lack of needed resources.

Community Care runs other programs, such as ID and income tax clinics, Christmas gift assistance, and family support. The family support program provides baby bundles to families with newborns.

Every week, the charity releases an infographic that highlights how many clients it served that week. At the time of this profile update, the number of clients on the four most recent infographics averages 2,042 clients served weekly.

Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold is not financially transparent. Its audited financial statements are not publicly available on its website. The following financial analysis refers to F2021, the most recent year of financial statements received from the CRA.

Community Care had total cash donations of $3.0m in F2021. It also received $3.2m in goods in kind (38% of revenues), up 73% compared with $1.8m in F2020.  Community Care received $1.8m in government funding (22% of revenues).

Community Care does not break down its spending into program, administrative, and fundraising costs on its audited financial statements and reports zero fundraising expenses to the CRA. Ci obtained program, administrative, and fundraising costs from the charity’s annual reports, which reconciled with its audited financials. Administrative costs are 4% of revenues (less investment income), and fundraising costs are 5% of cash donations. This results in total overhead spending of 8%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 92 cents are available for programs, which is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

Community Care has $3.7m in reserve funds, which can cover 85% or ten months of annual program costs. Community Care’s program cost coverage nearly doubled from F2019 to F2020.

Charity Intelligence has sent this update to Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 8, 2023 by Victoria Allder.