Founded in 1887, McMaster University (McMaster) is a public university in Hamilton. The school is named after Senator William McMaster, founding president of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, who funded its creation through a $900k bequest. Today, McMaster is a research-intensive university with six main faculties: business, engineering, health sciences, humanities, science, and social sciences. Its main programs are education and research, for which it does not provide a spending breakdown.

In fall 2020, McMaster University had 36,450 enrolled students, including 31,533 undergraduates and 4,917 graduates. Around 16% of its student population consists of international students. McMaster has 1,050 faculty members, of which 32% teach health sciences, 20% teach science, and 17% teach engineering.

McMaster University is home to 88 Canada Research Chairs. Its researchers also include 118 endowed research chairs, two Ontario Research Chairs, and a Canada 150 Research Chair. McMaster states that it ranks first across universities in Canada for faculty research intensity, based on research spending per faculty member. In F2020, it spent $404k per faculty member and $75k per graduate researcher.

McMaster publishes an annual Community Engagement Report to highlight local projects that it funds across Greater Hamilton. The McMaster Access Program works with local school boards to help underrepresented students plan for their postsecondary education. In F2020, it reached more than 400 local students through recruiting events and hosted 70 one-on-one academic advising sessions.

McMaster University is a Major 100 charity, one of Canada’s largest charities in terms of donations. It received donations of $113.6m in F2020. During the year, it also received $479.5m in tuition and other fees (43% of revenues) and $429.9m in government funding (39% of revenues). Administrative costs are 2% of revenues (less investment income) and fundraising costs are 5% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 6%. For every dollar donated, 94 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

McMaster has $1.3 billion in net funding reserves, of which $476.0m is donor-endowed. Excluding donor-endowed funds, McMaster can cover 87% or around ten months of annual program costs with its reserves.

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

Updated on August 30, 2021 by Eric Zhao.