Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology
STAR RATINGCi's Star Rating is calculated based on the following independent metrics: |
✔+
FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY
Audited financial statements for current and previous years available on the charity’s website.
A
RESULTS REPORTING
Grade based on the charity's public reporting of the work it does and the results it achieves.
Good
DEMONSTRATED IMPACT
The demonstrated impact per dollar Ci calculates from available program information.
NEED FOR FUNDING
Charity's cash and investments (funding reserves) relative to how much it spends on programs in most recent year.
31%
CENTS TO THE CAUSE
For a dollar donated, after overhead costs of fundraising and admin/management (excluding surplus) 31 cents are available for programs.
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OVERVIEW
About Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology:
Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation is a 3-star charity that is financially transparent. It has an above-average results reporting grade of A and overhead spending of 69% which is outside of Ci’s reasonable range. The charity has Good demonstrated impact and reserve funds large enough to cover program costs for almost six years.
Founded in 2001, Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST) is a licensed engineering firm that teaches people how to get safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) at home using simple and affordable technologies. It provides technical training and consulting, and acts as a centre of expertise in water and sanitation for the poor in developing countries. Since founding, CAWST has helped 50.1 million people achieve better WASH, which is halfway to its goal of 100 million people by 2030. In F2023, CAWST spent $5.8m on programs.
CAWST does not directly deliver WASH services to people, instead it works with training partners and supports organizations. CAWST offers services like training, consultations, and education. In F2023, CAWST completed 332 training workshops across 109 countries with 15,418 people attending and delivered 11,691 hours of consulting support. It also provided 6,406 online learning resources in 13 languages which was accessed by 88,377 people from 212 countries. In F2023, CAWST helped 14.1 million people have better WASH facilities. Organizations supported directly by CAWST helped 8.2 million of these people, and the other 5.9 million people were helped by organizations supported by CAWST training partners.
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Results and Impact
In F2023, CAWST's services helped 14.1 million people have better WASH by supporting organizations directly or indirectly.
The charity reports that 86% of people say that CAWST helped them start, strengthen, or grow their projects and people from 694 organizations implemented WASH projects, provided capacity development, or trained others to raise awareness in WASH.
CAWST also reports on the cost per person impacted. In F2023, it cost $0.57 per person impacted, compared to $0.57 in F2022, $1.33 in F2021, and $6.40 in F2020.
While Ci highlights these key results, they may not be a complete representation of Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology's results.
Charity Intelligence has given CAWST a Good impact rating based on demonstrated impact per dollar spent.
Impact Rating: Good
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Finances
Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology had donations of $1.6m in F2023. CAWST reports receiving $4.8m in donations, but Ci has adjusted for deferred donations and moved related party donations (from the board chair and other directors and executives) of $8.5m to other income.
The charity received $314k in government funding representing 2% of total revenues and investment income of $2.6m.
Administrative costs are 12% of revenues (less investment income) and fundraising costs are 57% of donations (after removing related party donations). This results in total overhead spending of 69%, which is outside of Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.
Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology has $33.4m in reserve funds. These reserve funds are the charity’s cash and investments. The charity has 5 years and 9 months of annual program costs covered by its current reserves.
This charity report is an update that has been sent to Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.
Updated on August 2, 2024, by Lily Ferguson.
Financial Review
Fiscal year ending December
|
2023 | 2022 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Administrative costs as % of revenues | 12.2% | 17.9% | 15.2% |
| Fundraising costs as % of donations | 57.3% | 55.8% | 11.9% |
| Total overhead spending | 69.4% | 73.7% | 27.0% |
| Program cost coverage (%) | 575.7% | 619.3% | 513.1% |
Summary Financial StatementsAll figures in $000s |
2023 | 2022 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Donations | 1,606 | 1,955 | 2,501 |
| Government funding | 314 | 427 | 539 |
| Fees for service | 0 | 70 | 259 |
| Investment income | 2,588 | (1,194) | 1,590 |
| Other income | 8,534 | 5,450 | 2,643 |
| Total revenues | 13,041 | 6,709 | 7,531 |
| Program costs - International | 903 | 842 | 746 |
| Program costs - Canada | 4,898 | 3,772 | 4,825 |
| Administrative costs | 1,274 | 1,414 | 901 |
| Fundraising costs | 920 | 1,091 | 297 |
| Total spending | 7,994 | 7,118 | 6,767 |
| Cash flow from operations | 5,047 | (409) | 764 |
| Capital spending | 27 | 165 | 18 |
| Funding reserves | 33,395 | 28,571 | 28,582 |
Note: To report on a cash basis, Ci included deferred contributions in donations, affecting revenues by $4.7m in F2023, $1.7m in F2022, and ($1.3m) in F2021. Ci adjusted for deferred contributions from government funding, affecting revenues by $65k in F2022, and $nil in F2021. The charity did not break out government funding in F2023, but Ci has kept deferred contributions in donations. Ci moved related party donations (donations from the board chair) from donations into other revenue, affecting donations by ($8.5m) in F2023, ($5.5m) in F2022 and ($2.6m) in F2021. Ci included investment income in revenues, affecting revenues by $2.6m in F2023, ($1.2m) in F2022, and $1.6m in F2021. Ci reported administration and fundraising costs from the charity’s T3010 CRA filings and reconciled for the difference in program costs. Ci also used the T3010 to report government funding.
Salary Information
$350k + |
0 |
$300k - $350k |
0 |
$250k - $300k |
0 |
$200k - $250k |
1 |
$160k - $200k |
1 |
$120k - $160k |
4 |
$80k - $120k |
4 |
$40k - $80k |
0 |
< $40k |
0 |
Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2023
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Comments & Contact
Comments added by the Charity:
These comments were provided for a previous version of this profile.
Undesignated funding continues to be our largest and most important source of revenue, enabling us to be responsive and serve clients who have the most pressing needs. It allows us to be strategic and entrepreneurial as we look for ways to accelerate our reach and impact, and support organizations who access our services each year.
Our financial reserves provide the necessary stability to support long-term capacity development, enabling water, sanitation, and hygiene practitioners and organizations to access our services so they can build local skills and knowledge. Our reserves are calculated as the month-end cash balance divided by the average forecasted monthly expenditures, six months forward. As at December 2018, with no further funding and maintaining our current size, we could operate for three and a half years. Our goal is to build our financial sustainability and longer-term commitments with WET Centres to at least five years.
Moving forward, we will be ramping up our fundraising efforts, executing on a multi-year strategy to match up to $12 million dollars, generously donated by David P. O’Brien and Geoff Cumming. Through this match, our goal is to raise a total of $24 million dollars. This will allow us to accelerate our progress and tackle the worldwide shortage of local water, sanitation, and hygiene professionals.
Charity Contact
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tel: 403-243-3285