Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Foundation is a two-star charity with a high results reporting grade and high funding reserves that can cover grant spending for over nine years. The charity is financially transparent but has overhead spending outside of Ci's reasonable range.

Founded in 1988, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Foundation (CAMH Foundation) is the fundraising arm for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Ontario. CAMH is the largest mental health and addiction hospital in Canada. The charity reports that around 450 million people across the globe struggle with mental illness, making it the leading cause of disability worldwide. It reports that one in two Canadians have had a mental illness by the time they reach 40 years of age. According to CAMH Foundation, 4,000 Canadians per year die by suicide, an average of almost 11 suicides per day. The charity gives grants in five main areas: Research, Capital and Redevelopment, Programs, Education, and Public Awareness. In F2022, it granted a total of $27.1m, representing a 27% decrease from the previous year. 

Research represented 68% of grant spending in F2022. The foundation funds mental health research in three areas: brain science, policy and prevention, and personalized care. The charity aims to revolutionize our understanding of mental illness through its research. In F2022, CAMH Foundation wrote 984 peer-reviewed articles. It also funded 21 research chair positions during the year. 

CAMH Foundation spent 22% of grants on Capital and Redevelopment in F2022. The funding in this grant area goes towards the renovation of old facilities at CAMH. In F2021, CAMH opened two new hospital buildings: the McCain Complex Care and Recovery Building and the Crisis and Critical Care Building. Overall, these buildings add 600,000 square feet and 235 inpatient beds to CAMH.

Programs represented 9% of grants in F2022. CAMH offers a wide variety of clinical care services to patients including medical assessments, brief interventions, inpatient programs, outpatient programs, day hospital services, continuing care, and family support. In F2022, the hospital had 36,400 unique patients, including 32,689 outpatients and 3,531 inpatients. It had 14,573 emergency department visits during the year. CAMH had almost 17,500 appointments for transcranial magnetic stimulation in F2022. This is a non-invasive brain stimulation used for treatment-resistant mental illnesses. Education and Public Awareness comprise the remaining 1% of grant spending.  

CAMH Foundation is a Major 100 charity, one of Canada’s largest charities in terms of donations. In F2022, it received $38.0m in donations and special events revenue, representing a 31% decrease from F2021. During the year, the charity earned $11.7m in investment income, representing a 5% annual return. Its average annual investment return since F2012 is 5%. The average annual return of the S&P 500 from 2012 to 2021 is around 15%. 

Combined administrative and fundraising costs are 47% of total revenue excluding investment income. For every dollar donated to the charity, 53 cents go to the cause. This is outside Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

CAMH Foundation has $269.3m in net funding reserves, including $24.9m in donor-endowed funds. Excluding donor-endowed funds, CAMH Foundation’s net funding reserves can cover F2022 grant costs for around nine years and six months. Using average granting from the past three years, the charity could cover roughly 6.8 years of grant spending with its current funding reserves.

According to its most recent T3010 filing with the CRA in F2021, CAMH Foundation uses external fundraisers. It paid external fundraisers $1.0m to raise $4.8m in F2021, at a cost of $0.22 per dollar raised.

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

Updated on August 2nd, 2022 by Arjun Kapur.