Canadian Constitution Foundation
STAR RATINGCi's Star Rating is calculated based on the following independent metrics: |
✔+
FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY
Audited financial statements for current and previous years available on the charity’s website.
B+
RESULTS REPORTING
Grade based on the charity's public reporting of the work it does and the results it achieves.
n/r
DEMONSTRATED IMPACT
The demonstrated impact per dollar Ci calculates from available program information.
NEED FOR FUNDING
Charity's cash and investments (funding reserves) relative to how much it spends on programs in most recent year.
72%
CENTS TO THE CAUSE
For a dollar donated, after overhead costs of fundraising and admin/management (excluding surplus) 72 cents are available for programs.
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OVERVIEW
About Canadian Constitution Foundation:
Canadian Constitution Foundation is a 4-star charity. It is financially transparent and has a B+ results reporting grade, which is above average. Its overhead spending is 28%, which is within Ci’s reasonable range. Its reserve funds can cover program costs for nearly two years and 11 months, which is also within Ci’s reasonable range.
Founded in 2002, Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) aims to protect the rights and freedoms of Canadians. It advocates for developments in Canadian constitutional law through legal cases that involve individual freedoms, rights to liberty, and rights to equal opportunity as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It also promotes public engagement through education and awareness of Canadians’ rights.
CCF spent $1.6m on its programs in the fiscal year ending March 2024 (F2024). It has three main programs: Litigation, Education and Communication. The charity did not provide a spending breakdown on its programs.
Litigation aims to defend constitutional freedoms against government action through various court cases. In F2024, CCF had three ongoing court cases and began eight new cases. Its current cases focus on various topics, including vaccines, identity expression, Indigenous rights, federalism, healthcare, and more.
Education provides resources to lawyers, students and other professionals regarding the Constitution of Canada. CCF runs the Runnymede Society and PrimaryDocuments. The Runnymede Society is a national student membership organization that invites speakers to debate legal ideas about individual liberty and constitutional law. PrimaryDocuments is an online database of historical documents related to the Constitution of Canada. In F2024, the Runnymede Society had 39 events and over 150 new student members. PrimaryDocuments increased its collection by over 300 documents and had 12,292 unique visitors at its site.
Communication aims to inform Canadians of their constitutional rights and freedoms through online platforms such as podcasts, YouTube, newsletters, and CCF’s learning website. CCF released 59 podcast episodes in F2024. Its YouTube platform had 213,635 interactions with users, which includes likes, shares and comments, and its videos received about 2,340,000 views. In F2024, it had 6,562 new newsletter subscribers.
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Results and Impact
In F2024, Canadian Constitution Foundation highlighted five court case victories from its Litigation programs, including the case CCF v. Attorney General of Canada. In this case, CCF argued against the use of the Emergencies Act in response to the trucker convoy protests in 2022. These arguments were accepted in January 2024. Another highlight is the case Reference re Impact Assessment Act. CCF argued that the federal Impact Assessment Act violated constitutional authority given to provinces. The Court agreed the Act was unconstitutional and only a small part of the Act was kept.
While Ci highlights these key results, they may not completely represent CCF’s results and impact.
Ci has not calculated CCF’s impact. This shows as n/r and does not affect the star rating.
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Finances
Although Canadian Constitution Foundation's audited financial statements provide some disclosure on how much it spent on program, administrative, and fundraising activities, it did not break out its staffing costs between these three activities. Thus, CCF follows line-item costing, which is not a financial reporting best practice. Given this, Ci referred to the charity’s T3010 filing with the CRA Charities Directorate to report program, administrative and fundraising costs.
CCF received $1.9m in donations in F2024, which is 89% of total revenue. It spent $1.6m on its programs in F2024, which is 75% of revenue. CCF recorded a deficit of $14k in F2024.
CCF spent $358k on fundraising costs, which is 19% of donations. It spent $168k on administrative costs, which is 8% of revenue. CCF has total overhead spending of 28%. For every dollar donated to CCF, 72 cents are available to go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range.
CCF has $4.6m in reserve funds (cash and investments). CCF can cover 289%, or nearly two years and 11 months of its annual program costs with its reserve funds. This is within Ci’s reasonable range.
This report is an update that has been sent to Canadian Constitution Foundation for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.
Updated on July 15, 2025, by Leah DeFrancesco.
Financial Review
Fiscal year ending March
|
2024 | 2023 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Administrative costs as % of revenues | 8.5% | 8.6% | 4.1% |
| Fundraising costs as % of donations | 19.2% | 17.5% | 7.0% |
| Total overhead spending | 27.7% | 26.0% | 11.1% |
| Program cost coverage (%) | 289.3% | 319.6% | 255.2% |
Summary Financial StatementsAll figures in $s |
2024 | 2023 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Donations | 1,865,126 | 1,615,276 | 3,538,109 |
| Government funding | 0 | 0 | 38,354 |
| Fees for service | 120,000 | 145,000 | 180,000 |
| Investment income | 106,376 | 15,457 | (29,807) |
| Total revenues | 2,091,502 | 1,775,733 | 3,726,656 |
| Program costs | 1,579,060 | 1,448,762 | 1,821,728 |
| Administrative costs | 168,433 | 150,520 | 155,513 |
| Fundraising costs | 357,920 | 282,226 | 244,379 |
| Other costs | 0 | 0 | (29,937) |
| Total spending | 2,105,412 | 1,881,508 | 2,191,683 |
| Cash flow from operations | (13,910) | (105,775) | 1,534,973 |
| Capital spending | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Funding reserves | 4,568,984 | 4,630,334 | 4,649,170 |
Note: 1. Ci adjusted for deferred donations, affecting revenue by ($138k) in F2024, ($313k) in F2023, and $889k in F2022. 2. Ci included the loss on sale of marketable securities in revenue, affecting revenue and expenses by ($30k) in F2022. 3. Ci removed amortization pro-rata from program, administrative, and fundraising costs.
Salary Information
$350k + |
0 |
$300k - $350k |
1 |
$250k - $300k |
0 |
$200k - $250k |
0 |
$160k - $200k |
0 |
$120k - $160k |
1 |
$80k - $120k |
2 |
$40k - $80k |
3 |
< $40k |
0 |
Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2024
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Comments & Contact
Comments added by the Charity:
Charity Contact
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tel: 1-888-695-9105