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 assistance to people struggling with hunger in the Toronto area. In F2019, Daily Bread supplied and distributed food to support 170 food programs in the Greater Toronto Area. These programs are run by 126 partner organizations, including shelters, meal programs, and other food banks.

In F2019, Daily Bread distributed 10.9 million lb of food. Apart from giving food to partner organizations, it also runs its own kitchen. In F2019, Daily Bread’s kitchen fed up to 5,000 people per week at agencies across Toronto, for a total of 144,698 total kitchen meal servings.

Daily Bread Food Bank’s research and advocacy division explores hunger and poverty in Toronto and advocates for policy change. Its annual Who’s Hungry 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 2019 report used data collected in one-on-one interviews with over 1,400 food bank clients at 51 partner organizations and was made with North York Harvest Food Bank and Mississauga Food Bank. Its data have been referenced in the media, government, and non-profit sector. 

In F2019, Daily Bread launched its Summer Produce Markets, bringing 156,477 lb of fresh food directly to Toronto Community Housing Corporation buildings in Scarborough. A similar initiative to increase access to fresh food was the expansion of the Daily Bread Warehouse; a freezer spanning 4,600 square feet was installed, increasing the capacity to store fresh and frozen food by four times. It also launched the new Victoria Park and Sheppard Food Bank.

Daily Bread Food Bank is a Large charity, receiving $8.9m in monetary donations and $20.8m in food donations in F2019. Daily Bread’s administrative costs are 3% of revenues (excluding investment income) and fundraising costs are 20% of donations. This means overhead costs are 23%. For every dollar donated, 77 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

The charity has total funding reserves of $2.7m. Excluding the cost of donated food, Daily Bread’s funding reserves can cover program costs for eight months. 

Daily Bread paid external fundraisers $36k in F2019 to raise $39k for a cost of $0.97 per dollar raised.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Daily Bread Food Bank for review. Comments and edits may be forthcoming. 

Updated on June 10, 2020 by Eric Jose. 

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