Heart&Stroke

222 Queen Street, Suite 1402
Ottawa, ON K1P 5V9
CEO: Yves Savoie
Board Chair: Andrew W. W. Cockwell

Website: www.heartandstroke.com
Charitable Reg. #: 10684 6942 RR0001
Sector: Health
Operating Charity

Charity Rating

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Donor Accountability

Grade: A-

The grade is based on the charity's public reporting of the work it does and the results it achieves.

Financial Transparency

Audited financial statements for current and previous years available on the charity's website [ Audited financial statement for most recent year ]

Need for Funding

Funding Reserves Program Costs

Spending Breakdown

Full-time staff #593

Avg. Compensation $72,242

Top 10 Staff Salary Range

$350k + 1
$300k - $350k 0
$250k - $300k 3
$200k - $250k 6
$160k - $200k 0
$120k - $160k 0
$80k - $120k 0
$40k - $80k 0
< $40k 0
Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2016

About Heart&Stroke:

Founded in 1952, the mission of Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (Heart&Stroke) is to “prevent disease, save lives and promote recovery”. Heart&Stroke's activities fall under four priority areas: preventing disease, saving lives, promoting recovery, and investing in research. Core programs include research, advocacy, and health promotion & community programs. The charity has two major goals for 2020: decreasing the risk factors for heart disease and stroke in Canadians by 10%, and reducing Canadians’ death rate from heart disease and stroke by 25%.

Health promotion & community program spending made up 57% of Heart&Stroke’s total program costs and grants in F2016. Heart&Stroke aims to prevent disease by generating awareness.  It organizes school and community programs, issues health information, and influences public policies. HSC aims to save lives by enabling better response and treatment for cardiac emergencies and strokes. This is accomplished by developing educational materials, and educating the public on CPR, AEDs and stroke awareness. HSC also aims to promote recovery by providing recovery information and creating a support network for survivors.

In F2016, Heart&Stroke generated health awareness among more than 919,000 Canadians through the Jump Rope for Heart program (down 6% from F2015). The charity trained 216,000 people in CPR during the year (down 2% from F2015), and trained 315,000 clinicians, first responders, and other personnel in Canada on how to respond to heart emergencies (up 44% from F2015). The charity’s Community of Survivors program had 785 participants in F2016. The program launched in F2015 and connects heart disease, heart failure and stroke survivors.

Research grants made up 43% of total program costs and grants in F2016. Heart&Stroke currently funds 850 researchers. The Canadian Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (CanROD) is a three-year research initiative co-funded by Heart&Stroke that focuses on treating heart attacks and is active in three sites across Canada. In its 2016 Report to Donors, Heart&Stroke reports that heart attack survival rates have doubled in some CanROD sites because of improved CPR services. Heart&Stroke funded researchers also led ESCAPE, a clinical trial on endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) as a treatment for stroke. The trial found that EVT cuts death rates in half and reduces disability from some strokes. Dr. Cunningham, senior scientist at SunnyBrook Research Institute, created a new imaging technique in F2016. It allows scientists to study metabolic processes within heart cells, which will hopefully help predict heart failure in the future. Heart&Stroke co-funded a 2016 study, which was published in Circulation Research, that demonstrated the imaging technique’s usefulness.

Heart&Stroke reports that the death rate from heart disease and stroke has declined by more than 75% since 1952.

Financial Review:

Heart&Stroke is one of Canada’s 100 largest charities, with donations of $116.2m in F2016. Administrative costs are 3% of revenues and fundraising costs are 44% of donations. Per dollar donated to the charity, $0.53 goes towards its programs, which falls outside of Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. The charity’s funding reserves of $77.7m include a $5.6m endowment fund. Excluding endowed funds, Heart&Stroke’s reserves can cover 99%, or roughly one year, of program and granting costs. The charity has program and research grants commitments to pay out $45.6m in the next 5 years -  59% of current non-endowed funding reserves.

As per the charity’s T3010 CRA filings, Heart&Stroke’s five largest grants for F2016 were to Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario ($2.7m), McMaster University ($2.3m), SickKids ($1.5m), University of Toronto ($1.4m), and University Health Network ($1.4m).

Heart&Stroke uses external fundraisers as part of its fundraising activities.  The charity reports $1.1m in fundraising costs for external fundraisers that raised $16.3m in F2016, producing an external fundraising cost ratio of 7%.

This charity report is an update that is currently being reviewed by Heart&Stroke. Comments and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 15, 2017 by Katie Khodawandi.

Financial Ratios

Fiscal year ending August 		201620152014
Administrative costs as % of revenues 3.0%3.7%4.3%
Fundraising costs as % of donations 43.9%46.6%46.9%
Program cost coverage (%) 105.9%110.7%116.2%

Summary Financial Statements

All figures in $000s 		201620152014
Donations 116,152115,647115,625
Government funding 4,3607,9326,759
Lotteries (net) 5,87070910,192
Investment income 1,7912,4003,020
Other income 2,3349,199532
Total revenues 130,507135,887136,128
Program costs 41,83648,77054,125
Grants 31,50630,93433,807
Administrative costs 3,7924,9315,741
Fundraising costs 50,99453,92254,226
Cash flow from operations 2,379(2,670)(11,771)
Funding reserves 77,69088,268102,156
Note: To report on a cash basis, Ci backed out amortization from program costs, reducing expenses by $580k in F2016, $847k in F2015 and $923k in F2014. Ci reported lottery revenue net of direct costs, reducing revenues and expenses by $11.0m in F2016, $33.0m in F2015 and $50.3m in F2014. Ci reported endowment contributions in donations, increasing revenues by $110k in F2016, $129k in F2015 and $1.1m in F2014.

Comments added by the Charity:

Comment for Charity Intelligence Profile – December 5, 2016

Heart&Stroke is a national charity with an ambitious vision: “Healthy lives free of heart disease and stroke. Together we will make it happen.” We need Canadians to join with us, as they have over the last 60 years, to help us in our mission to prevent disease, save lives and promote recovery.

Our national strategic plan, launched in 2013, set us on the path to achieving even greater tangible improvement in the health of Canadians. The plan identifies two specific impact goals, and everything we do ladders up to achieving these goals by 2020:

  • Reduce Canadians’ rate of death from heart disease and stroke by 25 per cent
  • Significantly improve the health of Canadians by decreasing their risk factors for heart disease and stroke by 10 per cent

Since Heart&Stroke was established in 1952, we have invested more than $1.45 billion in vital heart and stroke research, making us the largest contributor in Canada after the federal government. In that time, the death rate from heart disease and stroke has declined by more than 75 per cent. Our research grants have led to breakthroughs such as:

  • A hormone that revolutionized how we can control blood pressure, the leading risk factor for stroke;
  • The first heart transplant surgery in Canada;
  • Identification of the risk factors accounting for 90 per cent of all strokes and first heart attacks; and
  • A procedure that cuts stroke deaths by 50 per cent and significantly reduces disability in survivors by quickly pulling the clots out of the brain (ESCAPE trial 2015).

Below are some other recent examples that illustrate the impact we’re having:

  • In 2015, we created – along with the Childhood Obesity Foundation – a coalition of influential national, provincial and regional groups with an interest in promoting nutrition and health to advocate to restrict all commercial marketing of foods and beverages to Canadian children, and were successful in making this an issue during the federal election. Heart&Stroke was the first Canadian organization to call on Canadians to limit the amount of added sugar they consume each day. Too much sugar is linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and high blood cholesterol.
  • In 2015, we released a thought-provoking position statement on saturated fats, calling on Canadian society to think about saturated fats and heart disease in a new way.
  • In 2015, our advocacy efforts led to Nova Scotia and Alberta being the first jurisdictions to introduce a ban on menthol in cigarettes, the most commonly used flavour among youth.
  • Since 2004, we have empowered more than 1 million Canadians to assess their risk of heart disease and stroke, to target high blood pressure (the number one risk factor for stroke and a major risk factor for heart disease), and to make other healthy changes through the use of our free eTools.
  • In 2015, Heart&Stroke continued to provide a range of patient information and resources. We introduced Your Stroke Journey, a free comprehensive guide that helps stroke survivors and their families understand the effects of stroke and manage their recovery process.
  • In 2015, Heart&Stroke unveiled our Community of Survivors, a network of nearly 700 Canadians who have experienced heart disease, heart failure or stroke and are interested in improving their recovery. This group engaged in a variety of work, including being spokespeople during stroke month and testing the use of online technology for helping manage recovery.
  • In 2015, Heart&Stroke committed $1.5 million over five years (matched by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research) to the Canadian Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (CanROC), an ambitious, multi-provincial initiative aimed at improving survival rates from cardiac arrest by ensuring that all Canadians, regardless of their location, receive excellent care, from bystander response and early defibrillation through to advanced pre-hospital care.
  • In 2015, Heart&Stroke funded research in regenerative medicine that could be a game changer for patients with heart failure. A heart transplant is the only solution for advanced heart failure but research that is close to being translated into therapy could help the heart to repair itself after a heart attack.

Heart&Stroke is committed to providing the highest level of financial responsibility and transparency around our operations. We believe in monitoring and measuring our performance on an ongoing basis; continuously reviewing which programs and activities deliver higher returns and identifying ways to increase revenue so we can have even more impact against our mission. We continue, as always, to be strongly committed to improving the efficiency of our organization. We are confident that the strategic investments we made in becoming one organization will ensure the longer term success and efficiency of the HSC – leading to meaningful improvements in the health of Canadians.

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