Kawartha Food Share is a 2-star charity with Good demonstrated impact. It is not financially transparent. It has overhead spending outside Ci's reasonable range, and poor reporting of its results.  

Founded in 1998, Kawartha Food Share (KFS) collects and distributes food to local charities that feed people in the city and county of Peterborough, Ontario. KFS also runs food programs for children in schools and emergency food programs for people in need. The charity aims to give every child a healthy start to the school day by providing breakfast and lunch every day. 

On its website, Kawartha Food Share reports that it distributed $5m worth of food and emergency care needs to 36 local agencies. KFS and its 36 partner charities support 8,900 people every month through four meal programs, four City food banks, six housing projects, seven county food banks, and over 20 food cupboards in the city and county of Peterborough. Kawartha Food Share also reports that it provides healthy snacks to 51 schools to help feed 17,000 children every day. These statements are not dated, so it is not clear what year these results refer to.

Kawartha Food Share is not financially transparent. It does not post its audited financial statements on its website. This financial review was prepared using financial statements provided by the CRA.

Kawartha Food Share had total cash donations of $1.7m in F2020, compared to $358k in F2019 and $380k in F2018. It also received $6.7m in donated food and other goods, representing 77% of revenues. Administrative costs are less than 1% of revenues, and fundraising costs are less than 1% of total cash donations. This results in total overhead spending of 1%. For every dollar donated, 99 cents go to the cause. This is outside Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending, which is between 65 and 95 cents. In some cases, charities with less than 5% overhead costs may be underreporting their overhead spending.

KFS has total funding reserves of $2.1m, compared to $709k in F2019, representing a 199% increase. This is because donations went up by 381% from F2019 to F2020 while program costs went up by 22%. Excluding the cost of donated goods, KFS could cover 542% or five years and five months of its annual program costs with reserves.

Charity Intelligence sent an update of this report to Kawartha Food Share for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 6, 2022, by Sydney Olexa.