Université de Montréal is a top-rated five-star charity and one of Canada's largest charities in terms of donations. As with most large universities, it has a high results reporting grade and is financially transparent. The charity has overhead spending within Ci's reasonable range.

Founded as the Université de Laval a Montréal in 1878, Université de Montréal is a public research university in Montreal, Québec. The university includes three schools: l’Université de Montréal, l'École Polytechnique, and HEC Montréal.  The charity has 13 faculties and schools that offer 600 programs to students. The university’s main charitable programs are Education, Research, and Renovations, for which it does not provide a spending breakdown.

A Charity Intelligence 2023 Top 100 Rated Charity

Université de Montréal reports that it had 69,172 students enrolled in fall 2021, including 45,517 students at Université de Montréal, 14,169 students at HEC Montréal, and 9,486 students at L’École Polytechnique. According to the charity, undergraduate students make up 73% of the student body and graduate students make up 27%. The university had 48,778 full-time students and 20,394 part-time students. Université de Montréal had 10,004 international students.

The charity has 465 research units and is home to 145 Canada Research Chairs, two Canada Excellence Research Chairs, and one Canada 150 Research Chair. Université de Montréal also has two university-hospital research centres. The university reports that its library has three million books and documents. The charity is planning to open its new Brossard campus on the South Shore of Montreal in fall 2022.

Université de Montréal is a Major 100 charity, one of Canada’s largest charities in terms of donations. In F2021, it received $80.3m in donations. The university received $824.7m in government funding (59% of total revenue) and $192.0m in student fees (14% of total revenue) during the year. Université de Montréal earned $88.9m in investment income, representing a 22% annual return. Its average annual investment return from F2019 to F2021 is around 6%. The average annual investment return of the S&P 500 from 2019 to 2021 is around 24%. The university’s portfolio is 15% composed of investments in hedge funds.

Administrative costs are 5% of total revenue excluding investment income. Fundraising costs are 12% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 17%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 83 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

Université de Montréal has ($264.1m) in net funding reserves ($722.6m in liquid assets less $986.7m in interest-bearing debts) resulting in a negative program cost coverage. Its liquid assets also include $304.2m in donor-endowed funds. The university’s gross funding reserves, excluding donor-endowed funds, can cover program costs for around five months.

­­This charity report is an update that has been sent to Université de Montréal for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 9th, 2022 by Arjun Kapur.

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