University of Western Ontario is a top-rated 5-star charity and one of Canada's largest charities. As with most large universities, it has a high results reporting score and is financially transparent. The charity does not have large funding reserves and can cover less than 2 years of program costs. 

Founded in 1878, the University of Western Ontario (Western) is a public university in London, Ontario. Western University offers 17 different undergraduate degrees, and 160 different degrees at the master’s and doctoral level. In addition to the main university, it has three affiliate colleges: Brescia, Huron, and King’s. Western’s main charitable programs are education, research, and renovations. It did not disclose a spending breakdown of its programs on its website.

A Charity Intelligence 2023 Top 100 Rated Charity

In F2021, Western University had 32,091 full time students enrolled. This included 25,991 undergraduate students, 3,869 graduate students, and 2,231 PhD students. It reports that 4,493 of its students were from outside of Canada. In F2021 Western gave out 4,102 entrance scholarships with a total value of $9.8m. It gave out 7,341 bursaries with a total value of $16.9m.

Western has 1,356 faculty members, including 844 tenured faculty members. In F2021 its research department issued nine US patents and disclosed 58 inventions. During the year it worked on eight new construction projects and six major building renovations.

Western University is a Major 100 charity, one of Canada’s largest charities in terms of donations. In F2021 it received $65.3m in Canadian donations. Western also received $483.9m of government funding (33% of total revenue), and $455.9m in student fees (31% of total revenue) during the year. In F2021 The university earned $344.9m in investment income (23% of total revenue), which represents a 15% annual return. Its average annual investment return from F2013 to F2021 is 7%. 

Administrative costs are 3% of total revenue excluding investment income. Fundraising costs are 16% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 18%. For each dollar donated to the charity, 82 cents got the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. Western does not report fundraising or administrative costs in its financial statements, so Ci used its T3010 filing with the CRA to get that information. Note that its T3010 filing reported $27.5m less in total expenses than its financial statements.

Western has $2.4 billion in net funding reserves, which includes $2.7 billion in liquid assets less $346.5m in interest bearing debts. Its net funding reserves include $786.9m in donor-endowed funds. Western’s net funding reserves, excluding donor-endowed funds, can cover annual program costs for around 1 year and 8 months.

­­This charity report is an update that has been sent to University of Western Ontario for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on June 7th, 2022 by Arjun Kapur.