Indspire

About Indspire:

Founded in 1985, Indspire helps Indigenous students in Canada complete their post-secondary education for a successful future. Indigenous people are under-represented in post-secondary education programs, with only 10% of Indigenous students completing university degrees compared to 27% of other Canadian students. Indspire recognizes that lack of financial support is the root cause of this problem.

Building Brighter Futures (BBF) makes up the majority of Indspire's programming activities, representing 69% of program costs in 2015. Through BBF, Indspire grants bursaries, scholarships and awards to Indigenous students who need financial aid to complete their post-secondary education. BBF funded 4,921 students in F2015, disbursing $14.8 million. Building Brighter Futures represents the largest scholarship and bursary program for Indigenous students in Canada outside the Government of Canada. In February 2015, Indspire investigated graduation and employment rates of its financial award recipients. Based on data gathered from 1,248 students who received funding between 2000-2001 and 2012-2013, 93% of previous BBF recipients graduated from their post-secondary education program and 82% of these graduates are employed.

Indspire also runs education programs such as Rivers to Success and Peer Support for Indigenous students and teachers of Indigenous students. Rivers to Success is a mentorship program for Indigenous students finishing their post-secondary education. Indspire matched 52 pairs of mentors and students in 2015. Mentors with professional careers in the student's field of study help students with the school-to-work transition. Peer Support is a mentorship program for teachers of Indigenous students that pairs teachers based on the subjects they teach, which matched 74 pairs of teachers in 2015.

The K-12 Indspire Institute is an online educational tool for teachers, students and parents of the Indigenous community. K-12 Indspire Institute costs made up 12% of program costs in F2015. Membership grew by almost 100% between 2014 and 2015, from 2,340 to 4,193 members.

Soaring is Indspire's Indigenous Youth Career Conference program, which educates high school students about possible career and post-secondary education options. The conferences made up 5% of program costs in F2015. Indspire reports that 1,826 students attended one of the four conferences held during 2015 in Vancouver, Thunder Bay and Calgary.

Financial Review:

Indspire is a Big-cap charity with total donations and goods-in-kind revenues of $8.7m in F2015. Administrative costs are 7% of revenues and fundraising costs are 14% of donations, excluding goods-in-kind. $0.21 of every donated dollar goes to overhead costs, which falls within Ci's reasonable range for overhead spending.

The charity holds funding reserves of $32.5m, of which $25.1m are donor-endowed. Excluding donor-endowed funds, Indspire's reserves can cover only 36% of annual program costs, indicating a funding need.

This charity report is an update that is currently being reviewed by Indspire. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 8, 2016 by Katie Khodawandi.