Founded in 1999, Engineers Without Borders (EWB) fights poverty by investing in people and ventures. Sub-Saharan Africa has 250 million people working in 17.7 million small and growing businesses, but it is difficult for these entrepreneurs to access capital, talent, and business networks. EWB believes that strategic support of small businesses can increase a community’s education, housing infrastructure, employment opportunities, food supply, and access to financing. 

In F2019, Engineers Without Borders supported eight small and growing businesses, three evolving engineering ventures, and three governance ventures. Ventures receive access to business professionals and investments of up to $100,000.

In F2019, Engineers Without Borders invested $50,000 in MPost, which provides a digital address to people with no formal postal address in Kenya. The digital address has helped students receive university enrollment paperwork and helped remote villagers purchase goods. Since its founding in 2016, MPost has given close to 50,000 individuals a formal address, engaged more than 4,000 delivery agents, and has moved 30,000 letters and parcels. EWB has also supported Tibu Health, a telemedicine service that provides patients with flexible care from a health care professional. Patients can book an at-home appointment with a doctor, which reduces the fixed costs of traditional health care facilities and improves wait times.

Engineers Without Borders runs fellowship programs where university students and business professionals spend up to a year in Africa. Fellows support local businesses by providing expertise on hiring staff, appealing to investors, and managing finances. Fellows come from 40 chapters across Canada, with many of the chapters associated with a university. People pay a fee of $40 (or $20 for students) to become a chapter member. Membership fees partially offset the cost of running leadership and career development workshops in Canada. Chapter members also participate in EWB advocacy efforts, calling for the Canadian government to administer foreign aid more effectively. During the 2019 Canadian federal election, EWB’s public engagement efforts resulted in 76 candidates issuing public statements of support to increase Canada’s official development assistance ratio to 0.7% of donors’ national income.

Engineers Without Borders is a Medium-sized charity, receiving $2.1m in donations in F2019. The charity also received $2.4m in government funding (46% of revenues) and $576k in venture generated revenue (11% of revenues). Administrative costs are 14% of revenues and fundraising costs are 34% of donations. For every dollar donated, 52 cents go to the cause. This is not within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. Funding reserves of $894k can cover three months of annual program costs.

In F2018, Engineers Without Borders paid external fundraisers $8k. The charity did not report how much revenue was collected by fundraisers.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Engineers Without Borders for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 13, 2020 by Tenzin Shomar.