Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank (CFB) first opened its doors in 1985 to help respond to a severe economic recession. It serves the city of Cambridge and the township of North Dumfries, which have a combined population of around 145,000. Each month, CFB provides food to 26 local agencies and more than 1,600 individuals and families.

Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank’s main program is food distribution. It also runs various community programs, such as a food co-operative, family support services, and referral programs. In F2020, the charity provided $2.8m worth of food, spent $48k on food purchases, and reported $66k in other programs costs. It does not provide a spending breakdown of individual programs.

In F2020, CFB helped to distribute 604,602 pounds of food. It also provided 11,630 food baskets and 7,572 hot meals during the year. For clients in immediate need of food, CFB’s Community Pantry program offers emergency food hampers with a three-day supply of food, provided up to eight times per year.

The charity’s food co-operative is a membership-based initiative where people can join to help provide food for their local communities. Its members pay a $10 fee and volunteer for four hours each month to help unload food deliveries, perform administrative tasks, or work at food banks. In exchange, members can receive food pickups every two weeks to supplement their regular grocery budget. CFB’s other projects include Street Outreach, which hires social workers to refer clients to local services, and Kinship Support, which runs workshops and peer groups for caregivers. In F2020, Street Outreach workers made 3,780 contacts with clients. CFB’s Kinship Support programs also provided 107 nutrition workshops and 12 children’s cooking sessions during the year.

Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank received $1.1m in cash donations in F2020. It also received $2.8m in donated food (65% of revenues) and $311k in government funding (7% of revenues). According to the charity’s financial statements, the value of donated food is unaudited and estimated by its internal records. Administrative costs are 6% of revenues and fundraising costs are 4% of cash donations. This results in total overhead spending of 10%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 90 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank has funding reserves of $1.3m. Excluding the cost of donated food, it can cover around 1.4 years of annual program costs with its existing reserves.

Charity Intelligence has sent this update to Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 23, 2021 by Eric Zhao.