Edmonton's Food Bank

About Edmonton's Food Bank:

Founded in 1981 in Edmonton, Edmonton’s Food Bank (EFB) aims to collect excess and donated food for distribution, free of charge, to people in need. EFB also seeks to find long term solutions to the causes of hunger. In March 2018, there were 1.1 million visits to Canadian food banks, 35% of which were from children. Edmonton’s Food Bank combats these issues with eight programs. Its programs are Beyond Food Program, Retail Food Program, Hamper Program, Second Helping Program, Meal & Snack Program, S.N.A.C.K Program, Alberta Hunters Sharing the Harvest, and Plant A Row| Grow A Row | Share A Row Program. In F2018, EFB reports that it helped 62,475 Edmontonians with its various programs.  

In F2018, Edmonton’s Food Bank distributed $22.2m worth of food. EFB collected, repackaged and distributed four million kilograms of food to over 250 local agencies. These charities provided 500,000 free meals every month and served more than 20,000 people through hampers each month in 2018. Peak demand for the food bank’s hamper program was in May (24,000 clients), and March (23,400 clients). In 2018, an average of 22,033 per month received hampers which increased from 20,500 in F2016 but decreased from 22,240 in F2017. Moreover, EFB reports that its Beyond Food Program served 16 people daily in 2018.  

Edmonton’s Food Bank performed a survey in 2015, and again in 2018 to learn about the demographic of its clients. EFB found that only 22% of its clients were employed in the three months prior to completion of the survey and that there was an increase from 53% to 72% of people with a household income of less than $25k per year from 2015 to 2018. Moreover, 68% of respondents reported that their children do not receive snacks or meals at school. EFB therefore stresses there is a significant need for Canadian food banks and aid towards hunger prevention.  

Financial Review:

Edmonton’s Food Bank is a large charity with monetary and goods-in-kind donations of $27.4m in F2018. Administrative and fundraising costs for the charity were found on its T3010A filing with the CRA, for which the F2016 filing is not available. Therefore, overhead costs for F2016 are likely understated. However, in F2018, administrative costs were 0.8% of revenues and fundraising costs were 5.8% of donations. For every dollar donated, 93 cents go to the cause, which is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.  

Edmonton’s Food Bank has funding reserves of $4.8m which can cover program costs, excluding donated food, for just over two months. 

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada for review. Comments and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on June 14, 2018 by Parker Thomlinson.