CKUA Radio Foundation is a 3-star charity. It has a B- results reporting grade, which is average. For every dollar donated, 66 cents go to the cause.

Founded in 1927, CKUA Radio Foundation (CKUA) is an Alberta broadcasting service working to connect a community of music, arts, and culture enthusiast through broadcast and events. It is Canada’s first public broadcaster and is the 13^th-most-listened-to radio station in Edmonton according to PPM data by Numeris. CKUA broadcasts over 16 FM frequencies across Alberta as well as on its website and mobile app. The CKUA library consists of 1.5 million albums that were created over the past 140 years.

CKUA Radio is on air 24 hours a day, every day of the year. CKUA schedules different programs throughout the week and broadcasts different genres including country, classical, jazz, bluegrass, reggae, hip hop, dance, and rock music. In F2022, CKUA produced over 200 interviews with musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, writers, festival producers, choreographers, and actors. Festival Radio is a subprogram where the charity showcases music from a festival in Alberta each week of the summer. 11 on-air episodes, 37 interviews, and three bonus articles were released as part of Festival Radio.

CKUA Radio Foundation launched its OnDemand feature on August 13, 2022. OnDemand is a program that allows users to listen to CKUA programs online at a time of their choice. CKUA OnDemand was made possible due to the vision and finances of an anonymous individual.

In F2022, CKUA launched its first 50/50 raffle in an attempt to increase revenues proportionally to expenses. After expenses, the raffle netted $95k of surplus for the charity.

CKUA Radio studios occupy two heritage buildings in Alberta: The Alberta hotel (first built in 1883, then later rebuilt), and the National Music Centre (formerly the King Edward Hotel, one of the first hotels built in Calgary). The charity tries to further connect the community to its history and invites people to come to visit these spaces and learn about them.

CKUA Radio Foundation had donations of $3.6m in F2022. The charity received $487k in government funding, representing 9% of total revenues. Administrative costs are 14% of revenues and fundraising costs are 19% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 34%. For every dollar donated, 66 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

The charity has ($839k) in reserve funds. This is due to a $6.0m interest bearing debt that has yet to be repaid. As such, CKUA’s program cost coverage ratio is negative.

In F2022, CKUA paid external fundraisers $29k to collect $318k in donations. As such, it cost CKUA $0.09 to raise $1 using external fundraisers.

CKUA Radio Foundation has $2.2m in externally-endowed funds. These funds are endowed by The Calgary Foundation and the Edmonton Community Foundation. Ci has no reason to believe the board of CKUA can control these funds.

Updated on May 29, 2023, by Liam Chapleau