Founded in 2000, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Foundation (Sunnybrook Foundation) raises funds for Sunnybrook Hospital and Sunnybrook Research Institute. Sunnybrook Hospital is a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto, housing the largest trauma centre in Canada. It also runs one of Canada’s largest cancer treatment programs. Sunnybrook Foundation reports that 10,000 women each year are diagnosed with breast cancer in Ontario.

In F2021, Sunnybrook Foundation granted $37.6m towards Research, Buildings and Equipment, and Patient Care Initiatives. It does not provide a spending breakdown along these three core programs for F2021.

Sunnybrook Foundation funds Research projects that focus on areas ranging from cancer to traumatic injuries. In response to the covid-19 pandemic, Sunnybrook Foundation helped to launch new research projects on antibodies and immune resistance. In 2020, Sunnybrook researchers led a clinical trial across more than 50 health centres to test blood plasma from recovered covid-19 patients for antibodies.

The charity also fundraises to improve Buildings and Equipment at Sunnybrook Hospital. Sunnybrook Foundation raised funds to install the hospital’s MR-Linac, the world’s first and only machine combining radiation therapy and MRI scanners in a single device to locate and track tumours. It states that the MR-Linac offers greater precision than other radiation therapy machines in treatment-resistant cases. In 2020, the MR-Linac helped to treat 105 patients with brain cancer.

Sunnybrook Foundation funds Patient Care Initiatives to improve hospital services and support patients undergoing treatment. Sunnybrook Hospital runs the Odette Cancer Program, one of the largest cancer treatment programs in North America. It aims to provide patients and their families with personalized and minimally invasive treatment plans. In 2019, the program had 258,000 outpatient visits. It also hosted 40 people at workshops on delivering culturally-sensitive cancer care to Indigenous patients.

Sunnybrook Foundation is a Major 100 charity, one of Canada’s largest charities in terms of donations. It received $71.5m in donations in F2021. Administrative costs are 5% of revenues (less investment income) and fundraising costs are 14% of donations. This results in overhead spending of 20%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 80 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

Sunnybrook Foundation has $327.7m in funding reserves. This includes $118.2m in endowment funds, but the charity’s audited financial statements do not separate donor-endowed funds from internally-endowed funds. Total funding reserves can cover annual grant costs for 8.7 years. The charity’s funding reserves contributed $50.3m in investment income in F2021, at an estimated rate of return of 22% (compared to an investment loss of $9.1m at a return of -4% in F2020). Over the last nine years, Ci estimates that Sunnybrook Foundation’s investment returns have averaged 7%.

Sunnybrook Foundation discloses related party transactions. In F2021, it granted $15.3m to Sunnybrook Hospital and $21.6m to Sunnybrook Research Institute for programs, as well as $129k in unpaid grant balances from previous years. It also paid $12.4m to Sunnybrook Hospital for overhead costs, service fees, and a percentage of parking revenues in F2021.

According to its most recent filing with the Charities Directorate in F2020, Sunnybrook Foundation uses external fundraisers. It paid external fundraisers $1.2m to raise $4.1m, at a cost of $0.30 per dollar raised.

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

Updated on July 21, 2021 by Eric Zhao.