Canadian Olympic Foundation

250 Yonge St, Suite 3000
Toronto, ON M5B 2L7
CEO: Cindy Yelle
Board Chair: Perry Dellelce

Charitable Reg. #:81772 9346 RR0001

STAR RATING

Ci's Star Rating is calculated based on the following independent metrics:

[Charity Rating: 4/5]

✔+

FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY

Audited financial statements for current and previous years available on the charity’s website.

B+

RESULTS REPORTING

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

n/r

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.

89%

CENTS TO THE CAUSE

For a dollar donated, after overhead costs of fundraising and admin/management (excluding surplus) 89 cents are available for programs.



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OVERVIEW

About Canadian Olympic Foundation:

Canadian Olympic Foundation is a 4-star rated, financially transparent charity. It has an above average results reporting grade and its overhead costs are within Ci’s reasonable range. The charity has $13.4m in reserve funds, which can cover just over half a year of annual program costs.

Founded in 2007, the Canadian Olympic Foundation (COF) is the fundraising arm of the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC). The foundation raises funds to support the technical, scientific, medical and coaching needs of the COC's high performance athletes. The foundation notes that the COC must support athletes five to 12 years in advance of Olympic Games to achieve premier results. COF granted $9.8m to the Canadian Olympic Committee and various other sport partners in F2022. The foundation’s head office is in Toronto.

Canadian Olympic Foundation supports Team Canada by funding high-performance sport programs recommended by Own the Podium (OTP). To maximize Canada’s Olympic podium results, OTP directs grants to the sports with the greatest medal potential. Through the foundation’s game preparation grants, it provides support to the Canadian Olympic Team leading up to the Games and ensures the best services are available to athletes during the Games.

The Canadian Olympic Foundation focuses on supporting the ‘podium pipeline’ or The Next Generation of talented young athletes. It does so through funding programs such as the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sport Institute Network (COPSIN) and the Canada Games.

COPSIN is a program designed to improve the daily training environment of Canada’s athletes and coaches. The network of institutes has seven locations across Canada including: Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Toronto, Montreal, and Atlantic Canada. COF funds COPSIN to give upcoming athletes access to the best high-performance resources.

In F2022, 196 athletes and eight coaches directly received a Canadian Olympic Foundation bursary. The Canadian Olympic Committee and the COF injected $4 million into the Next Gen program in F2022. Athletes supported by Next Gen won eight gold, two silver and 11 bronze medals at the Beijing 2022 games.

The COC provides an annual report that encapsulates all its results. It is unclear what portion of these are funded by the foundation. Key results reported by the COC include $1.6 million provided to 160 athletes and $180 thousand provided to 43 Team Canada coaches. The COC’s Game Plan program provided 984 mental health care sessions and 1,300 athletes engaged with a Game Plan advisor. The COC’s OLY (short for olympian) Canada Legacy Grant program funds Olympian-led projects that aim to improve communities. In F2022, Olympians submitted 27 projects. Since 2019, the OLY Canada Legacy Grant has supported 32 projects. 

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Results and Impact

With the support of the Canadian Olympic Foundation, Canada won 26 medals at the Beijing 2022 Olympics. The Canadian team of 215 athletes participated in 481 events. 22 first-time Olympians won medals and there were 17 best Canadian finishes in nine sports.

The following information was added to a previous profile and is included below for informative purposes:

Canadian Olympians earned 22 medals in the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Rio (see graph of medals won in Summer Olympics below).

The Price of Olympic Pride: The Economist has an interesting article about the race between countries to rank high in the medal count at the Olympic games. This raises interesting decisions - a Canadian gold medal in ice hockey is just one medal, whereas the optimal strategy would be to fund one athlete who can win multiple medals, like swimming or archery. Sports that receive the most funding, like rowing, can miss the podium. The Economist reports Britain spent C$576 million on the Tokyo games from lottery funds to improve its medal haul. This follows a similar strategy that began in the US, with the Dutch and Germans following suit. Australia spent C$90m in F2021 to support its Olympic athletes at Tokyo.

Canadian Olympic Foundation funds the not-for-profit organization Own The Podium which received $66m each year in Government of Canada funding. Relative to Canada's medal count in previous Olympics, Charity Intelligence estimates that each medal won at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics is the result of over $6 million in spending. As other countries adopt similar strategies to win medals, this cost will likely increase. With 3 days left in the Tokyo Olympics, Australia has spent $8.2 million per medal won, and Great Britain has spent $11.3m per medal won.

Summer Olympic medals are more expensive; Canada spends 2.4 times more per Summer Olympic medal ($7.3m) compared to Winter Olympic medals ($3.1m). Canadian economists will cheer for the Canadian gold medal in weightlifting for a nifty $290k in spending relative to the $11.4m cost of a silver medal in diving. Cheering for the women's soccer team to bring home a medal for an estimated $9.5m in spending.

While Ci highlights these key results, they may not be a complete representation of Canadian Olympic Foundation’s results and impact.

This charity is not yet rated on impact (n/r).

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Finances

Canadian Olympic Foundation is financially transparent. Its audited financial statements are publicly available on its website.

Canadian Olympic Foundation’s audited financial statements do not report cost allocations for fundraising and administration. Ci used COF's T3010 filing with the CRA to report administrative and fundraising costs in F2021 and F2020. However, the charity’s F2022 filing with the CRA is not publicly available at the time of this profile update so fundraising and administrative costs cannot be allocated for the most recent year. For consistency, Ci has reported fundraising and administrative costs together in F2022, F2021 and F2020.

Canadian Olympic Foundation received $12.3m in donations and special events revenue in F2022. Administrative and fundraising costs are 11% of revenues. This means that for every dollar donated to the charity, 89 cents are available for grants, which falls within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

Canadian Olympic Foundation has $13.4m in reserve funds, which include $8.3m of donor-endowed funds. Excluding donor-endowed funds, the foundation can cover half a year of annual grants with existing reserves.

The charity does not report any paid staff on its F2022 T3010 filing with the CRA. In F2021, it reported 11 full-time employees.

Ci has sent this profile update to the Canadian Olympic Foundation for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 29, 2023 by Victoria Allder.

Financial Review


Financial Ratios

Fiscal year ending December
202220212020
Fundraising & admin costs as % of revenues 11.4%20.9%26.1%
Total overhead spending 11.4%20.9%26.1%
Program cost coverage (%) 55.3%62.4%60.1%

Summary Financial Statements

All figures in $000s
202220212020
Donations 2,0002,4002,000
Fees for service 9300
Lotteries (net) 1333170
Special events 10,3405,7157,367
Investment income (590)1,091588
Total revenues 11,9769,5239,955
Grants 9,7656,4207,956
Fundraising & administrative costs 1,4311,7612,446
Total spending 11,1968,18110,402
Cash flow from operations 7801,342(447)
Capital spending 000
Funding reserves 13,43611,7139,798

Note: Ci reported lotteries net, affecting revenues by ($594k) in F2022, ($1.6m) in F2021 and nil in F2020. Ci included investment gain (loss) and unrealized investment gain (loss) in revenues, affecting revenues and expenses by ($1.2m) in F2022, ($425k) in F2021 and ($12k) in F2020.

Salary Information

Full-time staff: 0

Avg. compensation: $0

Top 10 staff salary range:

$350k +
0
$300k - $350k
0
$250k - $300k
0
$200k - $250k
0
$160k - $200k
0
$120k - $160k
0
$80k - $120k
0
$40k - $80k
0
< $40k
0

Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2022

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Comments & Contact

Comments added by the Charity:

No comments have been added by the charity.

Charity Contact

Website: www.olympic.ca/foundation
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tel: 1-888-377-7073

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Charitable Registration Number: 80340 7956 RR0001