SEVA Canada
STAR RATINGCi's Star Rating is calculated based on the following independent metrics: |
✔+
FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY
Audited financial statements for current and previous years available on the charity’s website.
A
RESULTS REPORTING
Grade based on the charity's public reporting of the work it does and the results it achieves.
High
DEMONSTRATED IMPACT
The demonstrated impact per dollar Ci calculates from available program information.
NEED FOR FUNDING
Charity's cash and investments (funding reserves) relative to how much it spends on programs in most recent year.
73%
CENTS TO THE CAUSE
For a dollar donated, after overhead costs of fundraising and admin/management (excluding surplus) 73 cents are available for programs.
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OVERVIEW
About SEVA Canada:
Founded in 1982, Seva Canada Society (Seva) works to prevent and reverse blindness in developing countries. An estimated 43 million people around the world are blind. Seva reports that 30 million children experience some form of visual impairment and two million are blind. Seva-supported research has found that more of the world’s blind are women and girls. In fact, women and girls are 12% more likely to have vision loss and 8% more likely to be blind. Seva treats vision issues by offering glasses, medicine, and eye surgery (mainly cataract and glaucoma) to those in need.
Seva operates in 12 countries: Burundi, Cambodia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Francophone West Africa, Guatemala, India, Madagascar, Malawi, Nepal, Tanzania, and Tibetan areas of China. In F2020, Seva-partner hospitals and eye camps performed 88,695 cataract surgeries (54% women and 46% men) and 4,341 glaucoma and other surgeries. It also provided 8,405 people with prescription glasses.
Seva partners with people in remote areas to create and staff Community Eye Centres. Training sessions help doctors learn modern surgery procedures to treat glaucoma and cataracts. In F2020, three ophthalmologists received pediatrics and glaucoma training, five received cataract surgical training and three doctors received ophthalmology training. Most patients pay a small fee for the surgery. The money collected allows the eye centers to provide free care to the poorest patients. Seva Canada does not receive the fees for these procedures because the individual eye centers use them in continued operations.
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Results and Impact
In F2020, Seva-funded eye care programs helped 1,197,960 people.
People with restored sight have restored dignity, productivity, and independence. Up to 75% of people with visual impairment need help from someone to complete everyday tasks. Restoring sight helps those who are visually impaired, but also improves productivity for caregivers. Children with restored sight can return to school and eventually work. Without these opportunities, they would be unable to escape poverty.
Seva reports that every $50 donated is equal to one cataract surgery.
Charity Intelligence has given Seva a High impact rating based on demonstrated impact per dollar spent.
Impact Rating: High

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Finances
Seva received $1.4m in donations and special event revenue in F2020.
Administrative costs are 10% of revenues and fundraising costs are 17% of donations. This results in overhead spending of 27%. For every dollar donated, 73 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. Funding reserves of $697k can cover around 10 months of annual program costs.
Charity Intelligence has sent this profile update to Seva Canada for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.
Updated on June 9, 2021, by Shira Wine.
Financial Review
Fiscal year ending June
|
2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
---|---|---|---|
Administrative costs as % of revenues | 10.4% | 8.8% | 12.4% |
Fundraising costs as % of donations | 16.7% | 13.1% | 18.7% |
Total overhead spending | 27.1% | 21.8% | 31.1% |
Program cost coverage (%) | 82.7% | 27.7% | 20.4% |
Summary Financial StatementsAll figures in $s |
2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
---|---|---|---|
Donations | 1,370,557 | 1,958,140 | 1,326,139 |
Goods in kind | 638 | 3,997 | 45,833 |
Government funding | 32,872 | 0 | 0 |
Special events | 12,326 | 65,603 | 62,502 |
Investment income | 31,043 | 1,329 | 8,995 |
Total revenues | 1,447,436 | 2,029,069 | 1,443,469 |
Program costs - International | 842,740 | 1,425,875 | 1,135,713 |
Administrative costs | 147,462 | 177,358 | 177,248 |
Fundraising costs | 230,829 | 264,213 | 259,933 |
Other costs | 739 | 3,220 | 1,319 |
Total spending | 1,221,770 | 1,870,666 | 1,574,213 |
Cash flow from operations | 225,666 | 158,403 | (130,744) |
Capital spending | 0 | 295 | 3,174 |
Funding reserves | 697,034 | 394,408 | 231,354 |
Note: Ci listed cost of goods sold in other costs. Depreciation was removed from administrative costs and listed as a non-cash expense.
Salary Information
$350k + |
0 |
$300k - $350k |
0 |
$250k - $300k |
0 |
$200k - $250k |
0 |
$160k - $200k |
0 |
$120k - $160k |
0 |
$80k - $120k |
3 |
$40k - $80k |
1 |
< $40k |
0 |
Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2020
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Comments & Contact
Comments added by the Charity:
Charity Contact
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