Founded in 1986, Ronald McDonald House Northern Alberta (RMHNA) accommodates families with seriously ill children while they receive treatment in local Edmonton hospitals. RMHNA’s House helps families regain a sense of normalcy while dealing with the emotional and financial challenges related to their child’s medical treatment.

News: Ronald McDonald House Northern Alberta merged with Ronald McDonald House Southern Alberta in 2018. The merged charity, called Ronald McDonald House Alberta, operates using (the former) Southern Alberta's charitable registration number. Ci will not continue updating this charity report. As such, the programs and results and impact section of this report were last updated in 2016. Although, the financial analysis has been updated according to F2017 data. 

RMHNA’s House offers living quarters and meal services for up to 32 families at a time while their children receive treatment at the Stollery Children’s Hospital, Royal Alexandra Hospital, or Grey Nuns Hospital in Edmonton. RMHNA housed 1,394 people in 2015, equivalent to 10,977 nights of comfort according to the charity’s 2015 annual report. The report also states that over 48% of the families it housed during the year were from Northern Alberta. The charity offers shuttle services to families staying at the House, driving them to and from the hospital at which their child is receiving treatment. The shuttle made 11,566 trips in 2015.

Ronald McDonald House of Northern Alberta runs a nutrition program called Meals that Mend that supplies breakfast, lunch and dinner to families of seriously ill children staying at the House. Meals that Mend served 836 meals in 2015, a 29% increase from the year before. RMHNA also has a Fuel for Families program that delivers lunches to the Stollery Children’s Hospital – the charity delivered 3,300 lunches in 2015 and states that these lunches saved families over $36,000.

Ronald McDonald House of Northern Alberta also runs education and recreation programs for children staying at the House, which made up 16% of program costs in 2015. The Education program taught 21 students in 2015 from grades one to twelve. RMHNA’s Recreation program runs in conjunction with its Education program and includes field trips and hands-on activities for kids and their families. In 2015, the Recreation program took 535 participants on 54 field trips to places such as the Edmonton Zoo and Telus World of Science.

Ronald McDonald House Northern Alberta is a medium-sized charity with total donations, goods-in-kind and special events revenues of $3.5m in F2017. Administrative costs are 32% of revenues and fundraising costs are 34% of donations, excluding goods-in-kind. For every dollar donated, 34 cents go to the cause, which is outside of Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

In F2017, the charity holds funding reserves of $6.9m, which can cover annual program costs for almost 5 years.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Ronald McDonald House Alberta for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 30, 2019 by Parker Thomlinson.