Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief
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.
Low
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.
45%
CENTS TO THE CAUSE
For a dollar donated, after overhead costs of fundraising and admin/management (excluding surplus) 45 cents are available for programs.
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OVERVIEW
About Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief:
Founded in 1984, Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief (CPAR) works with health professionals and governments in Sub-Saharan Africa to build healthy communities. Headquartered in Toronto, CPAR has field offices and runs programs in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Tanzania. Through its core programs, CPAR supports the World Health Organization’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Core program areas include Health Systems Strengthening; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH); Food Security and Nutrition; and Livelihoods.
As of July 2021, CPAR highlights five ongoing projects in Malawi, four in Ethiopia, and two in Tanzania. No spending breakdown by region was provided by the charity. The charity's T3010a filing with the CRA showed a total of $530k going to overseas development and relief projects in Africa in F2020.
Malawi: CPAR reports that in Malawi, 1.7 million people do not have access to safe drinking water and 10 million do not maintain adequate sanitation practices. More than 30% of primary schools do not have access to safe drinking water, and only 4% have hand-washing facilities. Through its Green Schools Project, CPAR addresses these issues by educating teachers and students in permaculture, conservation agriculture, environmental conservation, and hygiene. In F2020, 4,808 students and their teachers in five Malawian primary schools received training and were provided access to fresh vegetables.
Ethiopia: Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief states that Ethiopia has double the global average maternal mortality rate (412 deaths per every 100k births). Additionally, disease accounts for 74% of all deaths in the country (in terms of premature death), which is the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. As such, a focus of CPAR's work in Ethiopia is strengthening healthcare systems, specifically that of Fitche Hospital. To aid the nearly 1.5 million people that depend on this Hospital, CPAR sent nine Canadian physicians to partner with local healthcare providers in order to improve healthcare delivery, and hosted two hands-on training programs for local frontline healthcare workers in F2020.
Tanzania: CPAR notes that 52% of Tanzanians do not have access to hand-washing stations (with soap and water). With hygiene practices affecting covid-19 transmission rates, CPAR distributed over 2,500 posters and 25,000 brochures on preventing and treating covid-19 in F2020.
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Results and Impact
CPAR runs a program, Stop Malaria in its Tracks!, in Malawi with the goal of informing people of malaria prevention and treatment methods, and improving local health services accountability and oversight regarding the spread of malaria. For context, more than 94% of malaria-related cases and deaths occur in Africa. CPAR reports that it held 1,310 awareness/educational events that reached over 180,000 people as part of Stop Malaria in its Tracks! in F2020.
In Ethiopia, CPAR built two new water reservoirs which increased Fitche Hospital's reserve capacity from 5,000L to 75,000L, thus improving resources for local healthcare delivery (F2019).
In F2019, Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief trained eight health facilities in Ethiopia's North Shoa Zone in basic emergency health care. CPAR reported that some health professionals used the resuscitation and fluid administration techniques taught in training to save the life of a near-drowning eight year-old boy who had been admitted to the emergency department hypothermic and unconscious.
While Ci highlights these key results, they may not be a complete representation of Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief’s results and impact.
Charity Intelligence has given Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief a Low impact rating based on demonstrated impact per dollar spent.
Impact Rating: Low

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Finances
Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief received Canadian donations of $784k, and international donations of $304k in F2020. Administrative costs are 19% of revenues (excluding investment income) and fundraising costs are 37% of donations. For every dollar donated, 45 cents go to the cause. This is not within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.
Funding reserves of $1.7m can cover 1.9 years of annual program spending.
This charity report is an update that has been sent to Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.
Updated on July 16, 2021 by Rachel Leteta.
Financial Review
Fiscal year ending March
|
2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
---|---|---|---|
Administrative costs as % of revenues | 18.5% | 13.2% | 10.2% |
Fundraising costs as % of donations | 36.6% | 41.1% | 36.8% |
Total overhead spending | 55.0% | 54.3% | 47.1% |
Program cost coverage (%) | 186.7% | 121.6% | 55.0% |
Summary Financial StatementsAll figures in $s |
2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
---|---|---|---|
Donations | 783,669 | 912,833 | 1,196,769 |
International donations | 304,359 | 567,808 | 423,444 |
Government funding | 75,899 | 0 | 0 |
Investment income | 22,037 | 3,650 | 60,550 |
Other income | 43,625 | 78,434 | 0 |
Total revenues | 1,229,589 | 1,562,725 | 1,680,763 |
Program costs - International | 530,023 | 847,519 | 963,901 |
Program costs - Canada | 359,205 | 382,735 | 211,552 |
Administrative costs | 222,868 | 205,094 | 165,966 |
Fundraising costs | 286,696 | 375,222 | 440,910 |
Other costs | 357,063 | 0 | 0 |
Total spending | 1,755,855 | 1,810,570 | 1,782,329 |
Cash flow from operations | (526,266) | (247,845) | (101,566) |
Capital spending | 3,017 | (681,388) | 2,711 |
Funding reserves | 1,660,041 | 1,495,646 | 646,751 |
Note: Ci reported international donations and government revenue found in the charity's T3010a filing with the CRA separately from Canadian donations. Line item "transitional costs related to reorganization and relocation" reported below total expenses was included in other costs, increasing total expenses by $357k in F2020.
Salary Information
$350k + |
0 |
$300k - $350k |
0 |
$250k - $300k |
0 |
$200k - $250k |
0 |
$160k - $200k |
0 |
$120k - $160k |
0 |
$80k - $120k |
3 |
$40k - $80k |
2 |
< $40k |
5 |
Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2020
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Comments & Contact
Comments added by the Charity:
This comment was provided by CPAR in response to a prior profile update, and thus, may be outdated.
New About CPAR:
Founded in 1984 in response to the famine in Ethiopia, Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief (CPAR) is a non-profit organization working in partnership with health professionals, vulnerable communities, governments and diverse organizations to build healthy communities in Africa.
Through our programming, CPAR supports the achievement of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development through programming that:
Charity Contact
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tel: 416-369-0865