Watch Tower and Tract Society of Canada
Georgetown, ON L7G 4S4
President: Kenneth Little
Board President: Warren Shewfelt
Website: n/a
Charitable Reg. #: 11928 8918 RR0001
Charity Rating
Donor Accountability
Grade: D
The grade is based on the charity's public reporting of the work it does and the results it achieves.Financial Transparency
Need for Funding
Spending Breakdown
Cents to The Cause
| ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | |
| 95¢ | |||
| 75¢ | |||
| avg | |||
| 65¢ | |||
| 50¢ | |||
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
Impact Rating: Low
Full-time staff #0
Avg. Compensation $0
Top 10 Staff Salary Range
| $350k + | 0 |
| $300k - $350k | 0 |
| $250k - $300k | 0 |
| $200k - $250k | 0 |
| $160k - $200k | 0 |
| $120k - $160k | 0 |
| $80k - $120k | 0 |
| $40k - $80k | 0 |
| < $40k | 0 |
About Watch Tower and Tract Society of Canada:
Founded in 1967, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Canada is the head office of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada. Watch Tower granted $8.3 million to 11 Jehovah’s Witness charities across Canada with $8.1m to JW Congregation Support, which helps other JW congregations to build, buy, and remodel churches and other religious buildings as well as provides emergency relief to natural and man-made disasters. Watch Tower’s largest area of program spending is grants and gifts in kind to international charities. Excluding the $2.1m backed out due to amortization, Watch Tower sent $58.6m in F2017 to support charitable programs in other countries to further the worldwide Bible educational work of Jehovah's Witnesses. The Society also works with the Order of Special Full-Time Servants for Bible education, including special training schools for those that lead preaching activities of Jehovah's Witnesses.
During F2017, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Canada sponsored 45 annual conventions in 24 locations within Canada to promote Bible education. It also printed 286 million Bible-based tracts, 86 million copies of the semi-monthly Bible journal ‘The Watchtower’, 62 million copies of ‘Awake!’ (companion to The Watchtower), and 8 million Bible-based brochures. These literature items were given for free to the public and congregation members throughout Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, and Guyana. The charity reported that it did not have any paid employees in F2017.
Financial Review:
Watch Tower and Tract Society of Canada is a Major 100 charity with $64.4m in donations in F2017. Its administrative costs are 3% of revenues and the charity does not report any fundraising costs. For every dollar donated, 97 cents go towards the charities programs, falling outside of Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. Before its $21m in bank loans, the charity has $16.9m in gross funding reserves, resulting in a net program cost coverage ratio of -5%. The financial statements Watch Tower provides to the CRA Charities Directorate are incomplete, missing the financial notes and auditors information.
This charity report is an update that has been sent to Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Canada for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.
Updated July 5, 2018 by Joeyanne Cheung.
Financial RatiosFiscal year ending August |
2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Administrative costs as % of revenues | 2.7% | 2.0% | 3.2% |
| Fundraising costs as % of donations | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Program cost coverage (%) | (4.9%) | 6.4% | (8.1%) |
Summary Financial StatementsAll figures in $000s |
2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Donations | 64,434 | 78,102 | 79,688 |
| Investment income | 161 | 158 | 548 |
| Other income | 452 | 568 | 3,086 |
| Total revenues | 65,047 | 78,828 | 83,322 |
| Program costs - International | 56,538 | 34,234 | 57,339 |
| Program costs - Canada | 21,547 | 21,854 | 27,424 |
| Grants | 8,259 | 9,260 | 3,846 |
| Administrative costs | 1,777 | 1,575 | 2,677 |
| Fundraising costs | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cash flow from operations | (23,074) | 11,904 | (7,964) |
| Funding reserves | (4,235) | 4,186 | (7,201) |
For more information on Canadian charities, please visit www.charityintelligence.ca
The information in this report was prepared by Charity Intelligence Canada and its independent analysts from publically-available information. Charity Intelligence Canada and its analysts have made endeavours to ensure that the data in this report is accurate and complete but accept no liability. .
Comments added by the Charity:
The charity provided these comments for a previous version. Updated comments may be provided shortly.
During the 2010 fiscal year, the Society’s printery, located in Georgetown, Ontario underwent a major retrofit to accommodate the installation of a new MANRoland Lithoman double wide printing press. The press is now being used to produce approximately 260 million copies of The Watchtower and Awake! magazines annually, a ten fold increase in production. These Bible based journals are distributed at no charge to the general public and to members of its congregations throughout Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. As a result, our program costs are expected to increase significantly beginning with the 2011 fiscal year.