Kids Help Phone is a 2-star charity. It is financially transparent but has overhead costs within Ci's reasonable range, below-average results reporting, and Low demonstrated impact.

Founded in 1989, Kids Help Phone (KHP) provides anonymous support to young people in crisis. It provides free and confidential counseling, referrals, and information. It runs a hotline and online chat service for kids to connect with professional counselors and a text messaging service where young people can seek advice. The service is available to children, teens, and young adults seeking advice on many issues, including mental/emotional health, peer relationships, family relationships, abuse, and suicide. Its head office is in Toronto, ON.

KHP has three strategies to accomplish its mission: Clinical Services, Equity, and Innovation. The charity did not provide a breakdown of spending among its strategies. Its goal is to raise $300m to reach all young people in Canada.

Clinical Services: In F2022, Kids Help Phone provided 207,837 professional counseling sessions, 179,869 Peer-to-Peer community interactions, and 224,948 crisis response texting sessions. 16 minutes and 43 seconds is the average interaction duration during a professional counseling session, and 41 minutes and 12 seconds is the average duration of a text interaction in F2022. Among the young people helped, 21% are 5-13 years old; 34% are 14-17 years old; 28% are 18-24 years old; and 17% are over 25 years old. The most common issue discussed is mental or emotional health.

Equity: Kids Help Phone is committed to addressing problems of systemic inequality and discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, disability, income, and immigration status to the children it serves. In F2022, it launched three new modules for Brighter Days (an Indigenous Wellness program), including Managing Anxiety, Understanding Abuse, and Mental Wellness and Self-care. The Equity program also consists of Rise Up, Canada’s first and only national 24/7 e-mental health service for Black youth. In 2023, the charity introduced 100 new languages to its phone services to reduce users' language barriers.

Innovation: In F2022, KHP launched an Innovation Center, including a Data Hub and the Aselo platform. The Aselo platform combines call centre technology with AI, Machine Learning, and data analytics to improve interactions between youth and front-line teams.

In F2022, Kids Help Phone received donations and special event revenue of $17.7m. The charity received $26.4m in government funding, representing 59% of total revenues. Administrative costs are 7% of revenues (less investment income) and fundraising costs are 41% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 48%. For every dollar donated, 52 cents go to the cause, which is outside Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

Kids Help Phone has $40.4m in reserve funds. The charity could cover 124% or roughly one year and three months of its annual program costs with its reserves. 

In F2021, Kids Help Phone paid $100k to external fundraisers that collected $158k in donations for the charity. This means that Kids Help Phone paid $0.63 per dollar raised. 

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

Updated on June 14, 2023 by Krystie Nguyen.