Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy is a five-star charity that is financially transparent. It has exceptional results reporting, achieving an A grade. For every dollar donated to the charity, 99 cents are available to go to the cause, which is outside Ci's reasonable range. 

Founded in 1997, Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy (EBC) aims to establish and maintain nature reserves across Ontario, with a focus on the Niagara Escarpment, Bruce County, and Grey County. It seeks to conserve land with ecological, cultural, historic, or scenic value. EBC also educates and engages the public on conservation by facilitating unintrusive hikes and visits to its nature reserves. Its head office is in Toronto.

A Charity Intelligence 2024 Top 100 Rated Charity

EBC’s main program is land conservation. In 2022, EBC spent $6.4m on new land purchases, received $3.6m in donated land and easement, and spent $1.1m on programs.

Escarpment Biosphere Canada uses two main approaches to conserve land: conservation agreements and land donations. It negotiates conservation agreements with landowners, which allow owners to create a list of restrictions on human uses of their property. EBC then takes responsibility for protecting the land and issues a tax receipt for an agreed-upon portion of the land’s market value. EBC also accepts land donations and severances, whereby owners transfer their land to a nature reserve held by the charity as either a donation or a discounted sale. EBC states that it typically offers tax receipts worth 60% to 97% of the value of a sold property. 

Currently, EBC has 229 nature reserves that span 23,170 acres (94 km²). In 2022, EBC added 29 new nature preserves totalling 2,921 acres. In spring 2023, the charity added 15 new nature preserves totalling 2,031 acres. In spring 2023, EBC protected Lake Wolsey and Nineteen Lake in Manitoulin Island, Fossil Hill and Lock on the Lake Huron shoreline, and the Bayview Escarpment on Georgian Bay.

NEWS: February 2023, EBC's founder and Executive Director, Bob Barnett, stepped away from his leadership role. There is uncertainty surrounding the actual events leading up to this change. Saba Ahmad is the Board Chair and acting Chief Executive Officer.

Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy received $8.6m in donations in F2022, a 142% increase compared to $3.6m in F2021. The charity also received $3.6m in donated land, representing 30% of revenue. Administrative costs are less than 1% of revenues (less investment income) and fundraising costs are less than 1% of cash and land donations. This results in total overhead spending of 1%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 99 cents go to the cause. This is not within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending of 65 to 95 cents to the cause. Charities above this range may be understating overhead costs.

EBC has $2.8m in reserve funds, which can cover 266%, or two years and eight months of its annual program costs.

According to its most recent CRA filing in F2021, EBC uses external fundraisers. It paid external fundraisers $6k to raise $169k in F2021, at a cost of $0.04 per dollar raised.

There appears to be an error in the charity's T3010 filing. It reported total compensation of $170,476 but only reports one worker that is paid less than $40,000. The executive director is paid $50,000 under a management service contract. EBC's auditors note its executive director and co-founder exercise a significant influence over its operations. There are immaterial related party transactions reported in financial note nine of the audited financial statements. 

Charity Intelligence has sent this update to Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 25, 2023 by Liam Chapleau.