124 Merton Street, Suite 207
Toronto, ON M4S 2Z2
CEO: Mark Rubinstein
Board Chair: David Garner

Charitable Reg. #:11904 2299 RR0001

STAR RATING

Ci's Star Rating is calculated based on the following independent metrics:

[Charity Rating: 4/5]

✔+

FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY

Audited financial statements for current and previous years available on the charity’s website.

A

RESULTS REPORTING

Grade based on the charity's public reporting of the work it does and the results it achieves.

n/r

DEMONSTRATED IMPACT

The demonstrated impact per dollar Ci calculates from available program information.

NEED FOR FUNDING

Charity's cash and investments (funding reserves) relative to how much it spends on programs in most recent year.

65%

CENTS TO THE CAUSE

For a dollar donated, after overhead costs of fundraising and admin/management (excluding surplus) 65 cents are available for programs.



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OVERVIEW

About Hope Air:

Hope Air is a four-star charity with a high results reporting grade and funding reserves that can cover less than two years of program costs. The charity has overhead spending just outside of Ci's reasonable range.

Founded in 1986, Hope Air provides free flights and lodging nationwide for people who cannot afford to travel to access medical care. The charity reports many of its clients live at or below the poverty line, creating a barrier to accessing healthcare. Without travel expenses paid for, Hope Air reports 33% of its clients would have to cancel appointments and risk delayed diagnosis. A delay in treatment by just four weeks can increase the risk of death by more than 10% for cancer patients, as reported by Hope Air.

To qualify for Hope Air’s services a patient must have a confirmed medical appointment that requires travel and is covered under the patient’s provincial health plan. Patients must also provide Hope Air with their household income for 12 months as proof of financial need.

In F2022, Hope Air helped 2,000 patients travel for medical appointments. This is $2,561 in total costs per client in 2022, as calculated by Ci. Patients travelled for cancer (25%), cardiovascular disorders (12%), musculoskeletal disorders (7%), nervous system disorders (7%), eye disorders (6%), and other conditions (43%).

Hope Air provided a total of 10,251 travel arrangements in F2022, a 51% increase over 6,782 in F2021. Travel arrangements include 5,670 free flights, 2,329 hotel nights, and 899 ferry trips. The charity states there is a growing need for long-distance travel for medical care. To meet this demand, Hope Air plans to increase its travel arrangements to 18,000 per year by 2025.

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Results and Impact

Hope Air reports that 69% of its clients said they would not be cured or would still be unwell without Hope Air. 21% of clients also reported they would have gone into debt without having travel provided. 

While Ci highlights these key results, they may not be a complete representation of Hope Air’s results and impact. This charity is not yet rated on impact (n/r).

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Finances

In F2022, Hope Air received $3.0m in cash donations. The charity received $789k in donated goods (15% of total revenue) and reported $121k in investment losses during the year. Hope Air received $1.7m in government funding, accounting for 31% of total revenue.

Administrative costs are 9% of total revenue excluding investment income. Fundraising costs are 26% of Canadian donations. This results in total overhead spending of 35%. For every dollar donated to the charity 65 cents go to the cause. This falls just outside Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. 

Charity Intelligence's fundraising cost ratio excludes the value of donated goods. If these donated goods are included, Hope Air's fundraising costs are calculated at 21%, reducing overhead spending to 30%.

Hope Air has $5.8m in reserve funds. These reserve funds are Hope Air’s cash and investments and can cover program costs for just under two years.  

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

Updated on May 19th 2023 by Brenleigh Jebb.

Financial Review


Financial Ratios

Fiscal year ending December
202220212020
Administrative costs as % of revenues 9.2%7.4%8.0%
Fundraising costs as % of donations 26.0%34.3%29.9%
Total overhead spending 35.2%41.7%37.9%
Program cost coverage (%) 192.9%308.6%277.9%

Summary Financial Statements

All figures in $000s
202220212020
Donations 3,0292,1401,866
International donations 079245
Goods in kind 789652476
Government funding 1,6851,7121,325
Investment income (121)89115
Total revenues 5,3834,6724,026
Program costs 3,0292,0521,951
Donated goods exp 789652476
Administrative costs 508339313
Fundraising costs 788734557
Total spending 5,1143,7773,298
Cash flow from operations 269895728
Capital spending 71612
Funding reserves 5,8446,3335,422

Note: Ci was unable to adjust for deferred revenues in F2022 and F2020, as Hope Air does not separate government deferred revenues from private deferred revenues on its financial statements. In F2021, Hope Air management provided a breakdown of deferred revenues allowing Ci to adjust for $253k in deferred donations and $183k in deferred government funding. In F2021 and F2020, Ci reported International donations from the Charity's T3010 filing with the CRA. At the time of this update, the F2022 T3010 data was not available. In F2020, Ci sourced program, administrative, and fundraising costs from the charity’s T3010 filings. In F2022, the charity changed its financial presentation to report activity-based costing. Ci removed amortization from program, administrative, and fundraising costs on a pro-rata basis.  

Salary Information

Full-time staff: 14

Avg. compensation: $87,031

Top 10 staff salary range:

$350k +
0
$300k - $350k
0
$250k - $300k
1
$200k - $250k
0
$160k - $200k
0
$120k - $160k
0
$80k - $120k
3
$40k - $80k
6
< $40k
0

Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2021

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Comments & Contact

Comments added by the Charity:

Comment received from Hope Air October 3, 2022

Hope Air appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Charity Intelligence(“CI”) report to provide important context to readers on their analysis.

For Hope Air to serve as many Canadians patients in need as possible, to maximize our impact, we rely on gift in kind donations (eg. donated airline vouchers) that were excluded by CI in their analysis of the ratio for fundraising costs of our charity. While we understand that this exclusion forms part of their overall methodology, we do not agree with the rationale. We believe that Donors value charities who demonstrate the ability to scale their impact through donations in kind used for mission.

Gift in kind donations for Hope Air are 100% program and mission related, which is why we reasonably calculate them in total donations. Donations of free air flights to our charity by both commercial and private airline operators are our first option to fulfill travel arrangements for Hope Air patients. This represents $651,997 in revenue that is detailed and recognized in our audited financial statements. If donations in kind were included in the CI formula, the cents to cause ratio determined by CI would be significantly higher.

Hope Air’s rating by CI for the 2021 was also negatively impacted by their funding reserve analysis. Hope Air’s reserves are slightly over CI’s suggested criteria that such reserves do not exceed three years of operating costs. The increase in Hope Air funding reserves relating to donations is anomalous, caused by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our operations in both 2020 and 2021. Challenges in the Canadian health care system resulted in numerous cancellations and postponements to medical procedures across all provinces. In turn, the volume of travel arrangements facilitated by Hope Air decreased significantly. Therefore, not all donations to the charity in 2021 could be utilized in the year to fund our programs. However, these donations will be fully utilized in the future, as the health care system stabilizes.

In our 2021 Impact Report, Hope Air sets out our Program, Fundraising, and Administration expenses as a percentage of our total expenses for the year. This methodology is consistent with the reporting by many other Canadian leading charities. For every dollar spent by Hope Air, in 2021, 71 cents went to Programs/Mission, 19 cents to fundraising and 9 cents to administration. Full details on Hope Air’s impact is available online at https://hopeair.ca/impact/

We thank Charity Intelligence for adding our comments in this report.

Charity Contact

Website: www.hopeair.ca
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tel: 416-222-6335

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Charitable Registration Number: 80340 7956 RR0001