FAQs

Charity Intelligence is fiercely independent. To give donors the best facts and our honest opinion, Charity Intelligence is funded entirely by donors and our work is for donors. Please note, unlike other charity accreditations, Charity Intelligence does not receive any money from the charities we rate.

To be independent and objective, Charity Intelligence is entirely funded by individuals, family foundations and corporations.

Thank you to our donors for their generous support that makes Charity Intelligence’s work possible. Our donors are:

Amazing Moustache Foundation ▪ Joyce Anderson ▪ Faramarz Amirshahi ▪ Anonymous Donors (24) ▪ Aston Family Foundation ▪ Kate Bahen ▪ Bealight Foundation ▪ Cindy Bennett ▪  Bickle Wilder Foundation ▪ Robert Black ▪ Ryan Borkofsky ▪ Kelly Brazil ▪ Dinshaw Burjorjee ▪ Sue Burns ▪ Burton Charitable Foundation ▪ Hazel Carlile ▪ Antoinette Caza ▪ Cavelti Family Foundation ▪ I-Cheng Chen ▪ Chisholm Thomson Family Foundation ▪ James Clarke ▪ Thomas Crawford ▪ DMPE Foundation, Inc. ▪ Alexandra Drummond ▪Peter Edwards ▪ E. L. Financial ▪ Barbara Lynne Ellis ▪ Joe and Jeanine Essaye ▪ Dr. Bob and Suzanne Evans ▪ Falcon Foundation ▪ George Fink ▪ Bernard S. Friedman ▪ Indira Friedhandler ▪ Francois Gallant ▪ Galvin Family Foundation ▪ Dawn and Benjamin Gentry ▪ Eveline Goodall ▪ Kim Gould ▪ Allen & Millie Gould Family Foundation ▪ Graeme and Patricia Greenlee ▪ Carol Guinane ▪ Heathbridge Capital Management ▪ Graeme Hepburn ▪ Keith Hopper ▪ John and Dorothy Horrocks ▪ Peter Huggard ▪ Pamela Hunt ▪ Andrew Iwanenko ▪ Phillip Khaiat ▪ Elizabeth and Andrew Knox ▪ The Estate of Anne Langer ▪ Susan Lewis ▪ Huston Loke ▪ Kamaljit Longia ▪ John MacLatchy ▪ Mackie Wealth Group ▪ Dr. Ruby Mangat ▪ Gestion Maurice & Donna Assh ▪ Bob McArthur ▪ Janet McLellan ▪ John Meade ▪ Joe and Mary Meaden Fund ▪ Kerry McLorg ▪ Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation ▪ Philip Nearing ▪ Diane Nguyen ▪ J.M Nitchie ▪ Tom O’Hara and Jocelyne Cote-O’Hara ▪ Jim and Cathy Peplinski ▪ PepsiCo Canada Foundation ▪ Philantra Foundation ▪ Geoffrey Pottow ▪ Kristen Pouw ▪  Power Corporation Foundation ▪ Jennie and Karl Preuss ▪ Ian Gordon Pyper ▪ David and Jane Ramsey ▪ Adrian Rosca ▪ Greg Ribotto ▪ Garnet Roy ▪ Greg Sadler ▪ Margaret Scrivens ▪ Charles Shenkman ▪ Perminde Singh ▪ Bronwyn Smith ▪ Shawn Stackhouse ▪ Mireille and Murray Steinberg Family Foundation ▪ Telus Corporation ▪ Greg Thomson ▪ Nancy Thomson ▪ Barbara & Terry Triskan ▪ Caroline Vanneste ▪ T Gai Ward ▪ David G. Webster ▪ W. Garfield Weston Foundation ▪ Dover Wynn ▪ Terry Yanowski ▪ Dr. Anthony Yurkovitch

Charity Intelligence Canada is a team of volunteers and a few paid staff. We are all donors who care passionately about the needs of Canadians. Meet our team on our Ci Team page.

Ci’s mission: to provide Canadian donors with information that helps them make informed and intelligent giving decisions to have the greatest impact.

Ci is one of the only objective analysts with a national scope working for donors in Canada. Ci has been doing rigorous research and analysis on Canadian charities since 2006, analyzing over 700 Canadian charities and reviewing some on an annual basis. From this experience, Ci has continually refined its analysis. Our strongest asset is our people. Ci’s team of 30+ dedicated professionals have years of experience in a variety of professions, primarily investing, business analysis, research and public relations. Our reports add a valuable dimension to the emotional stories and pictures presented by charities.

We work for, and on behalf of, donors. We work with individuals, foundations and corporations. Through our website, Ci offers information and resources to donors at all giving levels. Whether you donate $50 or $5 million, your donation is significant and your generosity is worth it. Beyond our website offering, Ci’s Donor Advisory meets the needs of donors seeking customized, tailored advisory and analysis services.

Initially the research and analysis process began with a pool of charities that were identified as leading charities in best practices, as finalists from the Donner Awards program. Ci has since expanded to include charities requested by donors, nominated by executive directors of professionally-run organizations, or highlighted during sector research and readings. Charities who believe they excel in delivering services to Canadians in need also voluntarily participate.

For a description of our basic charity profiles, please review our Charity Profiles page. For an explanation of our star ratings, please visit our Rating Methodology page.

You can access all of our reports on our website. If you would like to be included on our electronic mailing list to receive notification of new reports and other news, you can subscribe here. You will receive approximately 5 emails per year.

This is always based on a donor’s individual choice and preference. It depends on what you value as being good or bad. Do you care only about cost efficiency (administrative and fundraising costs), or salary levels, or is impact important to you? The factors that you value most will determine if the charity is the right fit for your giving style. If you would like to discuss this further, please contact us.

Please search our charity database for the charity you are interested in learning more about. If the charity has not been reviewed, vote for it by making a request for review to Ci. We’ll include it in our “hopper”. Those charities receiving the most requests will be analyzed.

Ci is transparent with our methods of analyzing a charity. Ci is willing to share and provide you with the tools necessary to give intelligently. We encourage donors to become informed and will assist you in any way possible as part of Donor Services.

Ci expands its coverage to better answer questions donors have, focusing on what affects them the most. Ci follows donor interest and where current funding is given, addressing key bottlenecks and where donations can have the biggest impact.

Ci relies primarily upon the audited financial statements and annual reports for accuracy of the information we report on charities. As part of our overall due diligence, we will review the T3010 filings and check for additional information and/or red flags. In particular, we use the employee and compensation data provided on the CRA forms. However, due to the many discrepancies and errors that we have found within the T3010 filings, as well as the fact that they are self-submitted and unaudited, we rely upon the audited financial statements. In cases where the charity’s T3010 and its audited financial statements can be reconciled and the T3010 provides a better breakdown of revenues or expenses, Ci will refer to cost allocations in the T3010 filing.

If you would like to submit your charity for review, please send copies of the following information to Ci by email or mail. Reviews will be completed based on our capacity and resources to do so, with specific charities chosen based on donor demand for analysis of your organization and sector.

1. Charity name and charitable registration number;
2. Two most recent audited financial statements in full, with notes;
3. Annual reports, brochures, newspaper articles (any information you have easily at hand that may be useful for us in understanding your organization and its work); and
4. If you have any evaluation of your service and programs, these would be most useful.

Electronic copies of the above information are preferred and can be emailed to gthomson@charityintelligence.ca. Alternatively, the information may be mailed to:

Charity Intelligence, 5-154 30 Wellington St West, P.O. Box 129 Toronto, ON M5L 1E2

There is no cost to a charity to be reviewed by Ci. To maintain our independence and objectivity, and avoid a conflict of interest, Charity Intelligence does not accept payment from charities for doing reports.