Fighting Blindness Canada
STAR RATINGCi's Star Rating is calculated based on the following independent metrics: |
✔+
FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY
Audited financial statements for current and previous years available on the charity’s website.
B+
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.
34%
CENTS TO THE CAUSE
For a dollar donated, after overhead costs of fundraising and admin/management (excluding surplus) 34 cents are available for programs.
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OVERVIEW
About Fighting Blindness Canada:
Fighting Blindness Canada is a 2-star rated charity with an above-average results reporting score. It is financially transparent and has overhead costs outside Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.
Fighting Blindness Canada (FBC) was founded in 1974 as the Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation of Canada. Renamed Foundation Fighting Blindness in 1995, and Fighting Blindness Canada in 2019, the charity funds vision research, raises awareness about eye health, and advocates for access to new treatments. FBC reports that 1.5 million Canadians are blind or partially sighted, with one in five Canadians at risk of vision loss. The charity also states that the annual cost of vision loss in Canada is $32.9 billion.
Fighting Blindness Canada runs two main programs: Research, and Education and Advocacy.
Research: In F2022, Fighting Blindness Canada allocated 67% of annual program spending to Research. In 2022, FBC awarded $2.6 million to 35 projects. These projects include research on numerous eye diseases.
Education & Advocacy: This program accounted for 33% of program spending in F2022. Its goal is to educate the public on eye diseases and advocate on behalf of Canadians living with or at risk of developing blinding eye diseases. In F2022, a bill to establish a National Eye Care Strategy was introduced in the House of Commons. Through FBC’s efforts, 5,956 emails were sent to Members of Parliament in support of this bill. In F2022, FBC had 277,000 website views and 66,000 email subscribers.
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Results and Impact
In the past two years, researchers funded by FBC have made several advancements in the vision domain, such as finding a way to reactivate cells in the retina and turn them into light-sensing cells, potentially replacing those lost in retinal degeneration. Some of the work conducted by FBC-funded researchers has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Stem Cell Reports, Disease Models and Mechanisms, and the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology.
Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec) was approved by Health Canada in 2020. It is the first ever sight-restoring gene therapy medication, used to treat people with Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) or retinitis pigmentosa (RP). As of February 2023, FBC’s advocacy contributed to four provinces agreeing to publicly fund Luxturna.
While Ci highlights these key results, they may not be a complete representation of Fighting Blindness Canada's results and impact. This charity is not yet rated on impact (n/r).
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Finances
Fighting Blindness Canada received $6.0m in donations and special events fundraising in F2022.
Administrative costs are 11% of revenues (excluding investment income) and fundraising costs are 55% of donations. This results in overhead spending of 66%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 34 cents go to the cause. This is outside of Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.
The charity has reserve funds of $6.5m, which could cover a year and eight months of annual program costs.
According to its annual filing with the CRA, Fighting Blindness Canada used external fundraisers in F2021. In F2021, FBC paid external fundraisers $136k. These external fundraisers raised $218k in donations. This means it costs FBC $0.62 to raise $1 using external fundraisers.
This charity report is an update that has been sent to Fighting Blindness Canada for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.
Updated on June 27, 2023 by Kiara Andrade.
Financial Review
Fiscal year ending December
|
2022 | 2021 | 2020 |
---|---|---|---|
Administrative costs as % of revenues | 10.9% | 9.4% | 6.7% |
Fundraising costs as % of donations | 55.3% | 34.3% | 23.4% |
Total overhead spending | 66.2% | 43.7% | 30.0% |
Program cost coverage (%) | 169.6% | 248.4% | 311.7% |
Summary Financial StatementsAll figures in $000s |
2022 | 2021 | 2020 |
---|---|---|---|
Donations | 4,638 | 5,067 | 6,457 |
Government funding | 10 | 146 | 382 |
Special events | 1,360 | 884 | 714 |
Investment income | 106 | 35 | (91) |
Total revenues | 6,114 | 6,131 | 7,462 |
Program costs | 3,856 | 1,270 | 1,047 |
Grants | 0 | 1,815 | 1,264 |
Administrative costs | 657 | 572 | 504 |
Fundraising costs | 3,316 | 2,042 | 1,677 |
Total spending | 7,828 | 5,699 | 4,492 |
Cash flow from operations | (1,714) | 432 | 2,970 |
Capital spending | 11 | 12 | 5 |
Funding reserves | 6,540 | 7,661 | 7,204 |
Note: Ci included the change in fair value of investments in investment income, affecting revenues by nil in F2022, $6k in F2021, and ($176k) in F2020. To report on a cash basis, Ci included deferred contributions, affecting revenues by ($1.6m) in F2022, $140k in F2021, and $2.5m in F2020. Ci included grant amounts from the charity’s T3010 filings with the CRA, and removed the amounts from program costs. At the time of this report, the charity’s T3010 filings for F2022 are not available so this adjustment has not been made for F2022.
Salary Information
$350k + |
0 |
$300k - $350k |
0 |
$250k - $300k |
1 |
$200k - $250k |
0 |
$160k - $200k |
1 |
$120k - $160k |
2 |
$80k - $120k |
2 |
$40k - $80k |
4 |
< $40k |
0 |
Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2021
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Comments & Contact
Comments added by the Charity:
Charity Contact
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tel: 416.360.4200