Founded in 1995, KidSport Calgary is an amateur athletic association rather than a registered charity. It is eligible to issue donation receipts. According to a 2014 CIBC national survey, 1 in 3 Canadian children cannot afford to participate in organized sports due to high registration fees. Alberta has the highest costs of children’s sport in Canada; on average, Alberta parents spend $1,428 per child each year to participate in sports. 

KidSport Calgary is one of 177 KidSport chapters across Canada. Its mission is to make sure no child is on the sidelines because they cannot afford sport registration fees. KidSport Calgary is immensely proud that, with strong community support, it has always been able to fund every eligible application received. With the economic downturn in Calgary and the loss of funding partners, KidSport Calgary made the very difficult decision to fund all eligible applicants, but at reduced levels. The maximum financial aid was dropped from $500 in 2014 to $250 in 2016. For F2018 KidSport Calgary has raised the funding cap back to $375 per application.  

In F2018, KidSport Calgary & Area distributed over $1.62 million for sport registration fee assistance, which gave 5,647 kids (13% increase from F2017) the opportunity to participate in organized sport. The top 5 sports funded were soccer, gymnastics, hockey, basketball and martial arts.  

In October of 2018 the charity launched Goals for Kids, a website to support the efforts of some of its partners. The website, partnered with Calgary Flames Foundation and Canadian Pacific, features fundraisers for KidSport Calgary, including Calgary Flames forward Johnny Gaudreau’s pledge of $1,000 for every goal he scores. The charity also partners with Comrie Sports, which provided sports equipment for 2,604 kids at no cost. KidSport Calgary also offers no-cost sport opportunities to the wider community, providing free skate rentals at community and school rinks that more than 10,000 people used (a 14% annual increase). 

KidSport Calgary is a medium-sized charity, receiving $1.3m in donations in F2018. Administrative costs are 20% of total revenues (excluding investment income), and fundraising costs are 10% of total donations and special fundraising events. For every dollar donated, 70 cents go to KidSport’s programs, which is within Ci’s range for overhead spending. 

In 2018, KidSport Calgary had funding reserves of $994k, which can cover 58% of annual program costs. As an amateur athletics association, rather than a registered charity, KidSport Calgary is not required to file an annual T3010 return. Its salary information has been provided to Charity Intelligence and is not verified.  

Updated on June 27, 2019 by Caroline McKenna.