Western Canada Wilderness Committee

About Western Canada Wilderness Committee:

Founded in 1980, Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC) works to protect Canada’s natural environment. WCWC’s mission is to preserve Canada’s variety of plants and animals through research and public education. In F2018, WCWC spent $1,278,015 on its projects and educational work. WCWC has offices in Manitoba, Ontario and British Columbia, and over 60,000 supporters, volunteers, and donors across Canada. It has five main campaigns: protecting parks, preserving the wilderness, saving wildlife, fighting climate change, and protecting natural resources.

WCWC calls for the protection and maintenance of provincial parks, working to ensure that the parks will be around for future generations to enjoy. WCWC advocates for the protection of forests, grasslands, and rivers across Canada. By protecting these ecosystems, WCWC hopes to reduce the human effects on the environment. WCWC also campaigns for the creation of animal rights laws, to save animals from losing their homes or being killed for sport.  WCWC raises awareness about the impacts of climate change, working to stop environmentally harmful projects from being built in Canada. Since Canada has such an abundance of natural resources, WCWC aims to ensure that sustainable practices are used when extracting these resources.

Since 1980, WCWC’s work has resulted in millions of hectares of land being protected from industrial development. It has successfully ensured the survival of many endangered animals. WCWC presents its work to 100,000 people per year by hosting lectures, meetings and community events. They also publish and distribute informational newspapers and calendars.

Results and Impact:

After years of opposing liquified natural gas (LNG) projects, WCWC’s campaigns caused a large corporation to cancel its proposed project near Prince Rupert, BC. This resulted in saving salmon habitat in surrounding rivers. In F2018, WCWC’s work resulted in the government’s ban of the grizzly bear hunt in BC. This will save the lives of about 300 bears each year. WCWC’S campaign against the proposed Energy East pipeline resulted in the project being stopped, helping to reduce climate change in the future.

Financial Review:

Western Canada Wilderness Committee is a medium-sized charity with $2.5m in donations in F2018. WCWC’s administrative costs are 11% of revenue and fundraising costs are 27% of donations.  For every dollar donated, 62 cents go to the cause. This is outside Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. WCWC has $668k in funding reserves, which will cover program costs for six months.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Western Canada Wilderness Committee for review. Comments and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated June 10, 2019 by Stefan Tetzlaff.