Founded in 1984, Harvest Manitoba (previously known as Winnipeg Harvest) collects and distributes food to local agencies that combat food insecurity. In November 2019, Winnipeg Harvest merged with Manitoba Food Banks Association, collectively becoming Harvest Manitoba. The charity states that one in eight Manitobans lives in a food insecure household. It also reports that Manitoba has the highest child poverty rate in Canada, with 20% of children living in a food insecure home.

Harvest Manitoba’s main program is food distribution. It also runs smaller projects that address poverty and food insecurity, for which it does not provide a spending breakdown. These include school breakfast programs, baby food kits, tax return help, and job skills training.

In F2020, Harvest Manitoba received 10.9 million pounds of food, up from 10.5 million pounds in the year before. This amounts to an estimated $28.6m worth of donated food in F2020, and Harvest Manitoba spent a further $1.5m on food distribution during the year. According to its most recent count in F2019, the charity reported that it serves 28,712 adults and 20,877 children each month. Harvest Manitoba provides food through Harvest Hampers, boxes containing a 14-day supply of healthy food. Its food supplies consist of around 50% fruits and vegetables. Harvest Manitoba worked with 363 agencies to distribute food in F2019. These included 171 city food banks, 63 meal and snack programs, 50 rural food banks, 45 daycares, and 34 schools.

Harvest Manitoba’s Breakfast2Go program provides kits with one week’s worth of healthy food and snacks to low-income students. Its First Steps program delivers baby kits containing two 900-gram packs of baby formula, four boxes of baby cereal, and ten packs of baby food. Harvest Manitoba reports that it gives out 4,200 to 4,800 baby kits each year. Harvest Manitoba’s Income Tax Return Program recruits volunteer accountants and law students to help food bank clients file their tax returns. The charity helped 146 people file their returns and receive tax rebates in F2019. Harvest Manitoba also runs Harvest Training Programs to equip its clients with kitchen, warehouse, or customer service skills. In F2019, 50 out of 62 enrolled clients completed job training programs. 

After fiscal year end in F2019, Winnipeg Harvest and Manitoba Food Banks Association merged to become Harvest Manitoba. Figures for F2020 and F2019 are presented for the merged charity, while F2018 figures are for Winnipeg Harvest.

Harvest Manitoba is a Major 100 charity, one of Canada’s largest charities in terms of donations. In F2020, it received $4.0m in cash donations and special events revenue, as well as $28.9m in donated food and goods. Harvest Manitoba also received $52k in government funding during the year. Administrative costs are 1% of revenues (less investment income) and fundraising costs are 9% of cash donations and special events revenue. This results in total overhead spending of 10%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 90 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

Harvest Manitoba has $2.1m in total funding reserves. Excluding the cost of donated food, the charity’s reserves can cover 70% or between eight and nine months of annual program costs.

Charity Intelligence has sent this update to Harvest Manitoba for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 19, 2021 by Eric Zhao.