MaRS Discovery District
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.
89%
CENTS TO THE CAUSE
For a dollar donated, after overhead costs of fundraising and admin/management (excluding surplus) 89 cents are available for programs.
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Programs
About MaRS Discovery District:
Founded in 2005, MaRS Discovery District supports Canadian science and start-ups – helping them grow, create jobs, and solve society’s greatest problems. MaRS focuses on four sectors – cleantech (tackling climate change and increasing sustainability), health (improving the healthcare system), fintech (modernizing financial transactions), and enterprise software (optimizing work and employee engagement). MaRS currently occupies 1.5 million square feet in downtown Toronto and houses more than 120 tenants. MaRS’ goal is to drive discoveries in Canada.
MaRS groups its ventures into three groupings: start, grow, and scale. In the “start” group, MaRS helps ventures begin to generate revenue, attract investors, and build a strong team of employees. In the “grow” stage, Mars helps ventures increase their revenues, build their customer base, attract top talent, and raise money. Lastly, in the “scale” stage, MaRS helps ventures achieve growth targets, expand into international markets, and get clinical studies and trials regulatory approval.
MaRS works to expand the economic, social, ecosystem, and investment impact of it ventures. In total, MaRS-supported companies employed 12,800 employees in 2017. MaRS reports that its programs have positively impacted 17 million people. Since 2008, MaRS-supported ventures have had cumulative revenues of $3.2 billion and have cumulatively raised $4.8 billion from investors.
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Finances
MaRS Discovery District is one of Canada’s Major 100 charities, with donations and special events revenue of $22m in F2018. Administrative costs are 11% of revenues. For every dollar donated to the charity, 89 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. MaRS has funding reserves of $66.2m. Reserves can cover program costs for just over 2 years.
The charity’s audited financials report no fundraising costs. However, its T3010 CRA filings report fundraising costs of $761k in F2018, $718k in 2017, and $516k 2016. These amounts are not recognized in Ci’s analysis as we could not reconcile the audited financials with the CRA filings.
This charity report is an update that has been sent to MaRS Discovery District. Comments and edits may be forthcoming.
Updated on July 26, 2019 by Stefan Tetzlaff.
Financial Review
Fiscal year ending March
|
2018 | 2017 | 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Administrative costs as % of revenues | 10.8% | 11.2% | 10.5% |
| Program cost coverage (%) | 229.8% | 191.5% | 113.7% |
Summary Financial StatementsAll figures in $000s |
2018 | 2017 | 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Donations | 20,052 | 14,219 | 13,683 |
| Government funding | 18,384 | 18,900 | 17,535 |
| Fees for service | 1,402 | 1,617 | 1,451 |
| Business activities (net) | 3,513 | 11,396 | 10,712 |
| Special events | 1,904 | 1,987 | 1,665 |
| Total revenues | 45,255 | 48,119 | 45,046 |
| Program costs | 28,796 | 30,296 | 28,883 |
| Donor-designated donations | 14,123 | 8,456 | 8,526 |
| Administrative costs | 4,893 | 5,369 | 4,734 |
| Cash flow from operations | (2,557) | 3,542 | 2,315 |
| Funding reserves | 66,179 | 58,029 | 32,845 |
Note: Ci removed amortization of deferred capital contributions from revenue affecting revenue by $2k in F2017, and $3k in F2016.
Salary Information
$350k + |
1 |
$300k - $350k |
1 |
$250k - $300k |
0 |
$200k - $250k |
5 |
$160k - $200k |
3 |
$120k - $160k |
0 |
$80k - $120k |
0 |
$40k - $80k |
0 |
< $40k |
0 |
Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2018
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Comments & Contact
Comments added by the Charity:
Charity Contact
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