Indspire

About Indspire:

Founded in 1985, Indspire helps Indigenous students in Canada complete their post-secondary education for a successful future. Indigenous people are under-represented in post-secondary education, with only 10% of Indigenous students completing university degrees compared to 27% of other Canadian students. Indspire recognizes that lack of financial support is the root cause of this problem.

A Charity Intelligence 2017 Top 10 High Impact Charity

Building Brighter Futures (BBF) is Indspire’s largest program, representing 63% of program costs in F2016. Through BBF, Indspire grants bursaries, scholarships and awards to Indigenous students who need financial aid to complete their post-secondary education. BBF funded 3,792 students in F2016, disbursing $12.2 million. Building Brighter Futures represents the largest scholarship and bursary program for Indigenous students in Canada outside the Government of Canada. In February 2015, Indspire investigated graduation and employment rates of its financial award recipients. Based on data gathered from 1,248 students who received funding between 2000-2001 and 2012-2013, 93% of previous BBF recipients graduated from their post-secondary education program and 82% of these graduates are employed.

Indspire also runs education mentorship programs Rivers to Success and Peer Support for Indigenous students. Rivers to Success is a mentorship program for Indigenous students finishing their post-secondary education. Mentors with professional careers in the student's field of study help students with the school-to-work transition. While Indspire did not report the number of participants in 2016, it did report that Rivers to Success matched 52 pairs of mentors and students in 2015. Indspire is preparing to expand the program in 2017 to support and encourage high school students to complete high school and pursue post-secondary education. Peer Support is a mentorship program for teachers of Indigenous students that pairs teachers based on the subjects they teach, which had 245 participants in 2016.

The K-12 Indspire Institute is an online educational tool for teachers, students and parents of the Indigenous community. K-12 Indspire Institute costs made up 17% of program costs in F2016. Membership grew by 22% in 2016, from 4,193 to 5,130 members.

Soaring is Indspire's Indigenous Youth Career Conference program, which educates high school students about possible career and post-secondary education options. The conferences made up 4% of program costs in F2016. Indspire reports that 1,202 students attended one of the two conferences held during 2016 in Vancouver and London.

Financial Review:

Indspire is a big-cap charity with total donations and goods-in-kind revenues of $8.7m in F2016. Administrative costs are 11% of revenues and fundraising costs are 13% of donations, excluding goods-in-kind. For every dollar donated, 76 cents go towards Indspire’s programs, falling within Ci's reasonable range. The charity holds funding reserves of $27.2m, of which $23.4m are donor endowed. Excluding donor-endowed funds, Indspire’s reserves can only cover 22% of annual program costs, showing a funding need.

This charity report is an update that is currently being reviewed by Indspire. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on May 12, 2017 by Kevin Silberberg