Founded in 1982, Scarborough Women’s Centre (SWC) works to help women become economically and socially independent, living free from violence. The charity provides free counselling, mentoring, and educational workshops, and will refer women to other community resources. Since founding, SWC has worked with 172,000 women, with 3,921 served in F2017.

In F2017, 352 women accessed SWC’s counselling services, discussing gender-based violence, healthy relationships, emotional health, employment, education, and adjusting to life in Canada. Small groups of women participated in over 70 workshops which focused on topics including self-esteem, effective communication, anger management, family law, dealing with debt, and healthy living.

Scarborough Women’s Centre works with local high schools to reach poor or at-risk women between 13 and 19 years old. In F2017, 515 young women participated in 20 workshops designed to strengthen their ability to make positive life choices. Expanding the Reach is a program offering workshops tailored for women with disabilities.  

Results and Impact: Scarborough Women’s Centre collected information on the impact of its educational workshops. Of participants, 33% reported improvements in their emotional health, 15% improved their financial situation, and 12% prevented violence in their lives through leaving an abusive situation or making a plan to do so.

Through workshops for young women, 95 women developed life skills such as healthy communication, 54 learned more about the issues faced by women, and 11 applied their learning to prevent violence in their lives.

After attending Expanding the Reach workshops, 58% of women reported improved self-confidence and 15% were better able to access community resources.

Charity Intelligence has evaluated Scarborough Women’s Centre and found the charity to have Good impact per dollar (see image in lower right). 

Scarborough Women’s Centre is a micro charity, with donations of $171k in F2017. The charity received $188k in government funding, representing 52% of total revenues. Administrative costs are 24% of revenues and fundraising costs are 1% of donations. For every $1 donated, 75 cents go to the cause, falling within Ci’s reasonable range. SWC has $133k in funding reserves which could cover program costs for five months. This indicates a need for funding.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Scarborough Women’s Centre for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 26, 2018 by Madison Kerr.