British Columbia Lung Association

About British Columbia Lung Association:

The British Columbia Lung Association (BCLA) was initially founded in 1906 as the Anti-Tuberculosis Society. In 1978, the Society changed its name to the BC Lung Association, broadening its focus to all respiratory diseases including asthma, lung cancer, sleep apnea and COPD. The charity reports that 1 in 5 Canadians have lung disease, more than 13% of children are affected by asthma, and COPD is the number one cause of hospitalization in Canada. BCLA’s headquarters is located in Vancouver.

BC Lung Association provides free tools, resources and support to help British Columbians prevent and manage their chronic lung conditions. It helps people quit smoking as well as reduce their exposure to second-hand smoke and air pollution. BCLA operates BC’s free quit smoking support service, QuitNow.ca. It also supports a Facebook community of 18,000 people by celebrating members who have quit smoking and encourages others to try.

The charity works with governments to pass and defend laws that protect the lung health of people in BC. BCLA advocates for improvements in patient access to proven treatments and increased funding for disease prevention research. Research has shown that youth are more likely to start smoking if their favourite movie star smokes on screen. In 2017, by partnering with the BC Healthy Living Alliance, Vancouver Coastal Health, and Junction Digital Communications, BCLA helped a group of students from Vancouver promote to movie producers that smoking in movies is #NotSmokingHot. This campaign drew attention from both local and national media stations including Global National.

BC Lung Association also provides grants to researchers who are searching for new treatments and cures for a variety of lung diseases. The majority of funding from 2012-2016 went towards asthma and COPD research. 300 projects were funded from 2012-2016 with a total of $11.8 million being invested.

Results and Impact: A researcher funded by BCLA, Dr. Eleanor Setton of Victoria, discovered that the number of cruise ships docking in Victoria’s harbour had been increasing since 2000. This had led to an increase in air pollution, particularly sulfur dioxide emissions. Dr. Setton’s research influenced changes in emission control laws which have decreased sulfur dioxide emissions by 50%. This has resulted in estimated cost savings of $900 million in health benefits in Canada..

Financial Review:

British Columbia Lung Association is a medium-sized charity that collected $2.5m in donations and special events fundraising in F2017. Administrative costs are 9% of revenues and fundraising costs are 49% of donations. For every dollar donated to the charity, $0.42 goes towards the cause. This falls outside of Charity Intelligence’s reasonable range of overhead costs. Funding reserves of $8.4m can cover 1.8 years of annual program costs.

BCLA recognized $3.4m of deferred contributions as revenue in F2016. This was $1.4m above what the charity received in revenue during the year.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to British Columbia Lung Association for review. Comments and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated June 28, 2018 by Derek Houlberg.