Founded in 1957, World Vision Canada (WVC) is a Christian development, relief, and advocacy charity that helps communities, families, and children overcome poverty and injustice. Through monthly donations of $39, Canadian donors sponsor children, which provided food, water, healthcare, and education to 225 communities across 44 countries in 2018. Based on international program costs (omitting disaster response), WVC spent roughly $1.5m per community in F2018. The charity reports 415,113 sponsored children during the year, continuing the steady decline in child sponsorship from a peak of 514,060 in F2011. 

Through its child/community sponsorship lifecycle, World Vision Canada helps communities in three phases: Phase 1 focuses on partnering with community members to determine what needs to be done to achieve long-term solutions for challenges faced by the community; Phase 2 focuses on evaluating progress on improving community living conditions and making changes as needed to meet long-term goals; and Phase 3, which is reached when the community sees improved conditions, wherein WVC ceases its activities in the area. WVC’s projects last 10 to 15 years in each community. 

Over the past five years, WVC's largest program costs include health and nutrition (24%), food security and agriculture (22%), disaster response (15%), education (10%), community empowerment and child rights advocacy (9%), and developing global strategies for helping children (8%). 

In addition to development, World Vision Canada is a disaster response charity with a track record of quick response, typically spending disaster relief funding within three years. In F2018, response efforts provided 3.3 million people affected by disaster with basic necessities, including food, water, shelter, and healthcare services. Highlights include that WVC provided food aid to 307,942 people in war-torn Central African Republic. WVC also ran 13 nutrition sites in South Sudan during its civil war and treated 2,906 children for malnutrition.  

World Vision Canada is Canada's largest donor-funded charity and tops the list of Canada’s Major 100 charities receiving cash donations of $240.1m in F2018 along with donated goods-in-kind of $127.1m. WVC received government funding of $45.8m in F2018. 

WVC's administrative costs are 6% of total revenues (excluding investment income) and fundraising costs are 25% of total donations. For every dollar donated, 69 cents go to the cause, which is within Ci's reasonable range for overhead spending. WVC has total funding reserves of $42.3m, $2.3m of which are donor-endowed. Excluding donor-endowed funds, this can cover the charity’s program costs for less than 2 months. 

WVC provides more details on its financials in its 2018 Financial Overview.  

Like most large Canadian charities partnered with international organizations, Canadian donations are pooled with the international partner: World Vision Canada transferred to World Vision International $314.7m in F2018, $303.7m in F2017, and $320.1m in F2016 in donations and donated goods to run international development projects. 

Included in World Vision Canada's other income is $47.8m in F2018, $40.0m in F2017, and $28.2m in F2016 in funding from international organizations, including the UN's World Food Programme. 

World Vision Canada reports using external fundraisers: in F2018 it paid $8.3m to external fundraisers who brought in $71.5m in donations (12% fundraising cost).  

Updated on June 26, 2019 by Caroline McKenna.