Daily Bread Food Bank is a 3-star charity with Average impact. The charity is one of Canada's largest food banks and has a good results reporting grade. It has $33 million in funding reserves that cover program costs for 3.2 years. 

Founded in 1983, Daily Bread Food Bank (Daily Bread) works with its partners to provide food and help for people struggling with hunger in the Toronto area. According to the charity’s 2021 Who’s Hungry report, there were 1.45 million visits to Toronto food banks in 2020, a 47% increase compared to the previous year. In F2021, Daily Bread supplied and distributed food to support 189 food programs in the Greater Toronto Area. These programs are run by 126 member agencies, including shelters, meal programs, and other food banks. 

In F2021, Daily Bread distributed approximately 16.9 million pounds of food, a 30% increase from 12.9 million pounds in F2020. Aside from giving food to partner organizations, Daily Bread also runs its own kitchen. In F2021, its kitchen distributed 101,440 daily meal servings. In June F2021, the charity had 124,000 client visits which was a 50% increase compared to June F2020. In partnership with Red Cross, Daily Bread also distributed 10,643 meals to isolation programs in F2021. 

Daily Bread Food Bank’s research and advocacy division explores hunger and poverty in Toronto and advocates for policy change. In partnership with the North York Harvest Food Bank, the charity published the Who’s Hungry report. The report describes current statistics on the people and areas most affected by hunger, the causes of hunger, and solutions to hunger in the GTA. The 2021 report used data collected from 1,347 surveys and 17 phone interviews. The report also used 164 follow-up surveys from 2020 Hunger Lives Here participants.  

Daily Bread’s advocacy work focuses on tackling deep poverty, affordable housing, food access, and economic and social resiliency. In F2021, the charity collected 15,031 petition signatures calling for Ontario to reduce poverty by 50% by 2030. Daily Bread sent 441 letters to City Councillors advocating for affordable housing policies and had 12 meetings with federal and provincial elected representatives.  

Daily Bread Food Bank received $30.3m in monetary donations and $29.3m in food donations in F2021. Daily Bread administrative costs are 1% of revenues (excluding investment income) and fundraising costs are 9% of cash donations. This results in overhead costs of 11%. For every dollar donated, 89 cents go towards the charity’s programs. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.  

The charity has total funding reserves of $32.9m. This is an 86% increase from funding reserves of $17.7m in F2020.This increase is due to increased operating cash flow from higher donations during the covid-19 pandemic. Excluding the cost of donated food, Daily Bread’s funding reserves can cover program costs for 3.2 years.  

Daily Bread paid external fundraisers $177k in F2021 to raise $343k for a cost of $0.52 per dollar raised.  

Charity Intelligence has sent this update to Daily Bread Food Bank for review. Comments and edits may be forthcoming.  

Updated on June 24, 2022, by Emma Saganowich.