David Foster, the celebrated Canadian 16-time Grammy Award winner, founded David Foster Foundation (DFF) in 1986. DFF’s mission is to support Canadian families with children in need of life-saving organ transplants by helping families with their non-medical expenses. The foundation also strives to increase public awareness of the importance of becoming a registered organ donor. The charity reports there are currently over 4,500 Canadians waiting for organ transplants and that almost 300 Canadians die per year waiting for an organ. The foundation’s programs are financial support and public awareness.

Through the financial support program, the foundation supports families with children in need of a transplant with many costs, such as travel, accommodation, food, clothes, basic personal items, and rent or mortgage assistance. DFF reports having helped over 1,200 families since its inception. Ci notes that in F2017, DFF spent $501k assisting families, less than half the $1.2m it spent on employee salaries and benefits.

56 children supported by the foundation received an organ in 2018. DFF does not disclose details regarding how it helped these children or if it supported any other children who didn’t receive an organ. Based on reported the 56 children, DFF provided $8,940 per child in F2017. DFF was not responsible for covering the costs of these transplants as the charity does not supply funding for medical expenses.

David Foster Foundation also runs a public awareness program in hopes of increasing the number of organ donors in Canada and the United States. DFF reports having 109 digital billboards in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal displaying messages highlighting the importance of organ donation. The charity reports that these billboards have 800,000 daily impressions. Other than this statistic, Ci found little information regarding DFF’s public awareness initiatives.

Charity Intelligence has scored David Foster Foundation as a zero in financial transparency because the charity failed to provide financial statements when requested. The financial analysis completed by Charity Intelligence uses the most recent financial statements available to Ci, through a request to the CRA, at the time of writing this report.

David Foster Foundation is a large charity with total donations and special events revenues of $9.9m in F2017. Special events fundraising revenue increased by 111% from F2016 to F2017. Administrative costs are 2% of revenues and fundraising costs are 29% of donations. For every dollar donated to the charity, 69 cents go to its programs. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. DFF holds $25.5m in funding reserves. Reserves can cover program costs for over 14 years.

This charity report is an update that is currently being reviewed by David Foster Foundation. Comments and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 31, 2019 by Stefan Tetzlaff.