Founded in 1957, Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation (ACHF) is the fundraising arm for Alberta Children’s Hospital. The hospital cares for more than 102,000 children and families each year. Through its Child Health Grant Program, ACHF funds projects in four main areas. These include Research, Clinical Care, Family Centred Care, and Education. It granted a total of $23.0m in F2021.

Research funding represented 51% of grants in F2021. Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation funds more than 200 researchers to investigate pediatric disorders. ACHF’s current research projects include studies on genetic disorders and childhood epilepsy. The charity reports that its researchers can now screen children for 4,800 genetic disorders using new DNA sequencing equipment.

Clinical Care was 33% of grants. ACHF funds a variety of health services and life-saving care programs. Its Pediatric Critical Care Transport Program sends emergency respondents to smaller hospitals by ambulance, plane, or helicopter. ACHF’s mobile teams provide emergency services and transport severely ill children to Alberta Children’s Hospital for critical care. The program provides critical care to more than 300 children and babies each year.

Family Centred Care made up 11% of grants. Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation aims to offer health services that accommodate new families and young children. It states that the Alberta Children’s Hospital is the first in Canada to offer at-home cancer care. ACHF reports that at-home chemotherapy and treatments can take between 5 and 45 minutes, compared to several hours for a hospital appointment. ACHF also funds the Rotary Flames House, Alberta’s only pediatric hospice.

Education funding was the remaining 5% of grants. ACHF focuses on training physicians to support children and youth undergoing mental health crises. Through its CanREACH program, the charity offers a three-day conference and six-month virtual fellowship on mental health care. In F2021, ACHF helped to train 82 physicians and frontline workers on mental health support.

Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation is a Major 100 charity, one of Canada’s largest charities, with donations of $37.5m in F2021. Administrative costs are 9% of revenues (less investment income) and fundraising costs are 9% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 18%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 82 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

ACHF has $289.2m in total funding reserves, of which $78.6m is donor-endowed. Excluding donor-endowed funds, the charity can cover around 11 years of annual grant costs with its existing reserves. The charity’s funding reserves contributed $45.5m in investment income in F2021, at an estimated rate of return of 22% ($918k at a rate of return of 0.4% in F2019). Over the last eight years, Ci estimates that ACHF's investment returns have averaged 8%.

In F2021, ACHF granted $12.4m to Alberta Health Services (Alberta Children’s Hospital) and $10.5m to the University of Calgary. It states that it has committed $33.9m for future hospital and research grants and $14.6m for capital projects over the next two to three years.

Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation discloses related party transactions. In F2021, it received $208k in donations from members of its board of directors and paid $11k to legal and investment firms owned by board members.

Charity Intelligence has sent this update to Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 20, 2021 by Eric Zhao.