SickKids Foundation is a three-star charity. It has exceptional results reporting, achieving an A grade. For every dollar donated to the charity, 71 cents are available to go to the cause, which is within Ci's reasonable range. The charity has reserves that can cover its programs for just under five years. 

Founded in 1972, SickKids Foundation (SKF) is a charity that raises money for SickKids Hospital in Toronto, Ontario. Its formal name is The Hospital for Sick Children Foundation. SickKids Hospital reports that it has the largest children’s health centre in Canada and that it's the nation’s most research-intensive hospital. In F2023, SKF granted $182.4 million, of which $181 million (99%) went to SickKids Hospital. According to its 2023 annual report, the charity allocates 51% of grants to Research, 39% to Patient Care, and 9% to Education, National, and International programs.

The charity’s research focuses on cell biology, child health evaluative sciences, developmental and stem cell biology, genetics genome biology, molecular medicine, neuroscience and mental health, and translational medicine. In F2023, SickKids had a total of 1,913 research staff, including 276 scientists, 401 project investigators and team investigators, 843 general research staff, 226 research operations staff, and 167 core facilities research staff. In addition, it worked with 239 research fellows, 632 research graduate students, 456 research students, and 1,408 Medical Affairs residents and fellows. The charity does not disclose how many research grants it gave out in F2023.

In F2023, SickKids Hospital had 290,481 ambulatory visits, 219,249 clinic visits, 71,232 emergency department visits, and 73,146 virtual visits. It admitted 15,532 total inpatients and provided 98,362 patient days. The Hospital had 340 beds occupied each day, on average, with an average length of stay of 6.4 days in F2023. SickKids Foundation is currently in the midst of a major capital campaign to build a new hospital in downtown Toronto. The charity reports it will build over three million square feet across 15 years. The first build is a Patient Support Centre, a 22-storey education, training, and administrative tower that began in 2023.

SickKids Foundation is a Major 100 charity, one of the largest charities in Canada in terms of donations. It received $205.2m in donations and special events revenue in F2023. The charity earned $26.5m in investment income during the year (11% of revenue), representing a 2% annual return. Its average annual investment return since F2015 is 5%. It also received $7.1m in net lottery revenue (3% of total revenue). SKF received $33.1m in gross lottery revenue. For every dollar given to the charity through its lottery, 22 cents go to the cause.

Administrative costs are 3% of revenue (excluding investment income and net lottery revenue), and fundraising costs are 26% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 29%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 71 cents are available to go to the cause, which is within Ci’s reasonable range.

SKF has $1.4 billion in reserve funds, of which $663 is donor endowed. Excluding donor-endowed funds, the charity’s reserves can cover 493%, or four years and 11 months of its annual program costs.

SickKids Foundation has funding commitments of $24.1m in F2024, $24.7m in F2025, and $24.7m in F2026, for a total of $73.5m in funding commitments.

According to its most recent T3010 filing in F2022, SickKids Foundation uses external fundraisers. It paid external fundraisers $5.1m to raise $24.1m in F2022, at a cost of $0.21 per dollar raised.

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

Updated on August 23, 2023 by Liam Chapleau.