Islamic Relief Canada

About Islamic Relief Canada:

Founded in 2006, Islamic Relief Canada (IRC) is the Canadian affiliate of Islamic Relief Worldwide. As per its mission, IRC works with communities to strengthen their resilience to disasters and provides vital emergency aid when disasters occur. The charity is inspired by Islamic values and conducts its programs accordingly. IRC’s core programs include development projects, disaster relief, orphan sponsorship, Feed the Needy and WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene). In 2016, IRC spent $25.3m on international programs and $1.2m on Canadian programs. The charity spent $43.0m on program costs in 2017, without disclosing Canadian and international allocations.

Islamic Relief Canada’s development projects made up $7.4m (29%) of international program costs in 2016 (the charity’s 2017 annual report was not available at the time this profile was created). These projects focus on improving one of three aspects of communities in need: health, education or livelihoods. IRC’s education projects in 2016 included: improving educational support for Syrian children, helping 5,557 students and teachers in Syria, and improving support services for refugees in Tunisia, helping 4,930 people. Health projects in 2016 included a malaria prevention program in Niger that helped 180,465 people, mobile health clinics in Myanmar that treated 37,800 people affected by the conflict, and food and emergency health support services in Yemen for 19,047 people in besieged communities. Livelihoods projects for the year included helping 2,500 families in Pakistan through vocational training, skills development, livestock distribution and management training.

Disaster relief made up $6.5m (26%) of IRC’s international program costs in 2016. The charity currently has four disaster appeals: The East African famine affecting South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Kenya; the Myanmar conflict; the Palestine conflict; and the Syrian war affecting Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. In 2016, IRC’s Syria response efforts helped 3,378,355 people in total: 2,817,028 in Syria, 216,767 in Lebanon, 56,714 in Jordan, and 287,846 in Iraq.

Islamic Relief Canada’s Feed the Needy program made up $3.5m (14%) of international program costs in 2016. The charity delivers food packages to impoverished people across the world and runs two annual campaigns during the month of Ramadan and for Qurbani in late fall, where it raises money for this program. In 2016, Ramadan food distributions included 433,591 food packs that fed 1,067,059 people.   Qurbani food distributions included 172,182 qurbanis that fed 2,582,730 people.

Orphan sponsorship accounted for $4.6m (18%) of international program costs in 2016. 2016 child sponsorships totaled 6,185, including 1,169 in Palestine – Gaza, 521 in Afghanistan, 485 in Syria and 474 in Pakistan.

Financial Review:

Islamic Relief Canada is a Major 100 charity, meaning it is one of Canada’s 100 largest charities in terms of donations. The charity collected $32.6m in donations in 2017, excluding goods in kind. Administrative costs are 3% of revenues and fundraising costs are 10% of donations. For every dollar donated to the charity, 87 cents go to the cause, which falls within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. IRC’s funding reserves of $8.4m can cover 2 months of program costs, showing a need for funding. The charity’s program cost coverage has been falling largely due to increasing program costs.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Islamic Relief Canada for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Financial Review updated on August 24, 2018 by Joeyanne Cheung. Information about the charity’s programs was updated on June 15, 2017 by Katie Khodawandi.