Mazon Canada

About Mazon Canada:

Founded in 1987, Mazon Canada is a national response by Canada's Jewish community to address hunger by fundraising and supporting food banks across Canada. Mazon Canada seeks to raise awareness of poverty and hunger in Canada. It calls on the Jewish community's mitzvah tzedakah (obligation of charity) to address this social injustice. It encourages its supporters to symbolically invite a hungry stranger to their table by asking for a donation of 3% of food costs of any simcha or milestone event.

Mazon Canada grants these funds on a non-denominational basis to food banks across Canada. Mazon Canada receives grant requests from food banks, school programs, and in from the cold programs and annually makes grants in the spring. Mazon Canada focuses grants on smaller food banks that lack resources. In 2014, Mazon Canada donated $200,000 to frontline charities. This is a 35% increase over 2013 grants.

Financial Review:

From cost allocations reported on Mazon Canada's T3010 filings, fundraising costs were 35% of donations in 2013 and administrative costs were 26% of revenues. Mazon Canada spent a combined $403k to grant $146k. Management says that this is under current review with an intention to improve cost efficiencies. Mazon Canada has $1.2m in unrestricted funding reserves that represent 8 times its annual grants.