Founded in 1976, ShareLife was established by the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation for the Diocese of Toronto in Canada. Its mission in F2016 is to “live the Gospel by providing for those in need.” Its previous mission statement in F2015 was to “provide care and outreach to those in need through its social services agencies and grant recipients, by raising and allocating funds effectively, and fulfilling its obligations to respect life at all stages.” Today, ShareLife funds over 42 different agencies and grant recipients. While no numbers were published for F2016, in F2015 Sharelife provided over 381,000 services to over 114,000 people in need. ShareLife works in 42 municipalities in 225 parishes, communicating with its clients in over 20 languages.

ShareLife supports agencies that work with families, children and youth, the elderly, single and teen parents, people with special needs, and immigrants and refugees. Its agencies work to address social issues such as mental health, safe affordable housing, food security, isolation among seniors and domestic violence.

ShareLife reports that, in F2016, it helped over 21,000 people deal with stress, anxiety, personal crisis, domestic violence and troubled relationships through its Catholic Family Service agencies. Further, Camp Ozanam sent over 600 boys from families experiencing financial or domestic challenges to summer camp. Finally, its agencies assisted over 2,000 seniors and people with special needs.

In F2016, ShareLife’s largest grant recipients were Catholic Family Services of Toronto (at $1.6m), Catholic Charities of the Archdioceses of Toronto (at $0.9m), and Catholic Family Services of Simcoe County (at $0.7m).

Charity Intelligence has scored Sharelife as a zero in financial transparency because the charity failed to provide full financial statements when requested. 

ShareLife is a big-cap charity, with donations of $13.9m in F2016. Its administrative costs are 4% of revenues and its fundraising costs are 7% of donations. For every $1 donated to the charity, 89 cents are put towards its programs, falling within Ci’s reasonable range. The charity’s funding reserves of $12.1m include $4.8m in donor-endowed funds. This results in a program cost coverage ratio excluding donor-endowed funds of 56%. This means that the charity can fund 6.7 months of its annual programs using its current reserves, excluding donor-endowed funds, indicating a need for funding.

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

Updated on June 1, 2017 by Kevin Silberberg.