CanadaHelps is a 4-star charity. It has a slightly above average results reporting score and spent less than one percent of donations on overhead costs. 

Founded in 2000, CanadaHelps simplifies giving with its online platform for donations. Its website helps donors send funds to charities of their choice and store donation receipts. CanadaHelps also provides charities with fundraising platforms and donor management tools. CanadaHelps receives cash donations and donated securities on behalf of charities across Canada. To cover its costs, it distributes the funds to charities for a processing fee of between 2% (security donations over $100k) and 4% (one-time donations). 

In F2021 CanadaHelps gave out $391.8m in donations. Since 2000, CanadaHelps reports that it has raised $1.8 billion.

CanadaHelps helps charities by streamlining the donation process and reducing overhead costs. It offers customizable donation forms, ticketed event pages, peer-to-peer fundraising, and monthly donation options. In F2020, CanadaHelps launched its Donor Management System (DMS). The system generates reports on donor data and helps charities track patterns in donations over time. 167 charities started using the DMS In F2021. CanadaHelps also reports that in F2021, it had 3,837 new charity partners. CanadaHelps hosted 22 webinars to help charities improve their online fundraising in F2021.

CanadaHelps aims to help Canadians donate with ease and engage more people in charitable giving. CanadaHelps launched its Cause Funds initiative in November 2019 to encourage more young people to donate to charity. In F2021, it launched four new Cause Funds. These include the Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Fund, COVID-19 Seniors Care Fund, Asian Solidarity Fund, and Anti-Racism Fund. Cause Funds helped 10,494 donors support 3,939 charities in F2021, up from 682 charities in F2020. CanadaHelps also publishes an annual Giving Report to provide information on Canada’s charitable sector. The Giving Report 2021 was downloaded 4,574 times.

CanadaHelps received $404.5m in donations in F2021, up 34% from $301.4m in the year before. In F2021, CanadaHelps distributed $391.8m in donor-designated grants, compared to $280.1m in F2020.

CanadaHelps audited financial statements do not disclose activity-based costing. Charity Intelligence has used its information filed in its annual T3010 return for cost allocations. Administrative costs are less than 1% of revenues and fundraising costs as a percentage of donations are virtually zero. Nearly all dollars donated go to the cause. This is not within Ci's reasonable range for overhead spending between 65 and 95 cents. However, given the low-cost nature of this charity, this likely does not raise any concerns about understated overhead costs.

CanadaHelps has $4.8m in net funding reserves, which can cover 40% or about 5 months of program costs.

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

Updated on June 2, 2022 by Emily Downing.