Founded in 1983, Daily Bread Food Bank (Daily Bread) is now one of Canada’s largest food banks. Daily Bread works with its partners to provide food and help to people struggling with hunger in the Toronto area. According to the charity, 4.4 million Canadians and 1.2 million Canadian children are food insecure. In F2020, Daily Bread supplied and distributed food to support 173 food programs in the Greater Toronto Area. These programs are run by 118 member agencies, including shelters, meal programs, and other food banks.

In F2020, Daily Bread distributed approximately 13 million lb of food, an 18% increase from F2019. Aside from giving food to partner organizations, Daily Bread also runs its own kitchen. In F2020, its kitchen distributed 112,030 daily meal servings.

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 2020 report used data collected in one-on-one interviews with over 1,400 food bank clients at over 50 partner organizations. Its data is used in the media, government, and non-profit sectors.

In F2019, Daily Bread launched its Summer Produce Markets. In F2020 the program provided 156,573 lb of fresh food to 10,000 individuals in low-income communities. It also partnered with Purolator to launch the Red Bag Campaign in F2020. The campaign raised 6,474 lb of non-perishable food which was distributed throughout the Danforth area.

After being temporarily shut down due to covid-19, Daily Bread partnered with the Toronto Public Library and relocated its food distribution to empty libraries across Toronto. In two months, it distributed 300,000 lb of food to 18,120 people.

Daily Bread Food Bank received $25.3m in monetary donations and $25.0m in food donations in F2020. Daily Bread’s administrative costs are 1% of revenues (excluding investment income). Fundraising costs are 10% of cash donations. This results in overhead costs of 12%. For every dollar donated, 88 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

The charity has total funding reserves of $17.7m. Excluding the cost of donated food, Daily Bread’s funding reserves can cover program costs for just over two years.

Daily Bread paid external fundraisers $58k in F2019 to raise $121k for a cost of $0.48 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 4, 2021, by Shira Wine.