CanadaHelps

About CanadaHelps:

Founded in 2000, CanadaHelps operates an online platform that facilitates donations to charities. It also gives charities online fundraising tools. The charity reports that 86% of charities in Canada have 5 or fewer staff and 48% are fully volunteer run. In CanadaHelps’ 2017 Giving Report, it notes that four out of every five small charities in Canada (revenues under $500k) rely on donations to operate.

CanadaHelps has grown quickly and now is bigger than United Way Toronto, another 'middle-man'/intermediary charity. Its online giving platform makes it the “Amazon” of giving in Canada. United Way Toronto handles $131 million in donations at a cost of $23.8m and grants to charities $108.9m. In comparison, CanadaHelps handled more in online donations: $138.2m, granting $133.5m to charities.

In F2017, CanadaHelps charged an average transaction fee of 3.6% for processing donations. CHIMP is another online donating platform that charges a processing fee of 2.8% for donations made by credit cards. CanadaHelps reports that 17,400 charities (20% of all registered charities in Canada) now use its giving platform to process online donations.  

CanadaHelps provides a variety of services to charities which include customizable donation forms, fundraising event services, crowdfunding campaigns and donor management reports. CanadaHelps offers charities free training webinars, white papers on donor giving behaviour, and how-to resources. In F2017, it states that 8,000 participants engaged in these educational resources during the year.

Results and Impact: CanadaHelps has built a convenient, secure and cost-efficient online giving platform used by 405,000 Canadians in F2017 donating $138.2m, a 92% increase compared to F2013. Each donor that used CanadaHelps in F2017 dontated an average of $341.

Financial Review:

CanadaHelps is one of Canada’s largest charities in terms of donations, a Major 100, with donations of $133.8m in F2017, a 20% increase compared to F2016. The charity distributed $133.2m worth of donor-designated grants in F2017. Charity Intelligence has reported the charity’s fundraising and administrative costs together, which are 4% of total revenues. For every dollar donated, $0.96 goes to its grants. This falls outside Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending, although due to the nature of its operations, this does not raise a concern. CanadaHelps has funding reserves of $5.1m that can cover 1 year of annual fundraising and administrative costs.

In F2017, fees charged by CanadaHelps in transaction fees cover operating costs. CanadaHelps is one successful social enterprise. 

This is a new charity profile that has been sent to CanadaHelps for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Created on August 14, 2018 by Derek Houlberg.