Unit 5-3318 Oak St.
Victoria, BC V8X 1R1
Managing Director: Darryl Anderson
Board Chair: Alain-Michel Sékula

Charitable Reg. #:89064 8249 RR0001

STAR RATING

Ci's Star Rating is calculated based on the following independent metrics:

[Charity Rating: 2/5]

✔+

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.

Low

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.

77%

CENTS TO THE CAUSE

For a dollar donated, after overhead costs of fundraising and admin/management (excluding surplus) 77 cents are available for programs.

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OVERVIEW

About Mercy Ships Canada:

Mercy Ships Canada is a two-star charity that has overhead spending within Ci's reasonable range and funding reserves that can cover less than two years of program costs. Although the charity has a high results reporting grade and is financially transparent, it has low demonstrated impact resulting in a rating of two stars.

Founded in 1989, Mercy Ships Canada (MSC) is a charity that helps provide surgeries and improve healthcare infrastructure in developing countries. Mercy Ships Canada is one of 16 national branches that support Mercy Ships International. Mercy Ships International has two hospital ships which it uses to travel to port cities and offers free medical care to locals in need. The first ship is The Africa Mercy which has five operating rooms and 80 patient beds. The second ship is The Global Mercy, a newly built ship with six operating rooms and 199 patient beds. The Global Mercy is the largest hospital ship in the world. Mercy Ships Canada has two main charitable programs: Medical Response and Capacity Building.

The Medical Response program offers free surgeries and medical procedures to poor people in developing nations. The charity mostly operates in sub-Saharan Africa. MSC offers various medical procedures including general surgery, cleft palate surgery, reconstructive plastic surgery, eye surgery and dental treatment. The charity reports that oral diseases affect 3.58 billion people globally and are the most common group of non-transmissible diseases in the world. In F2021, MSC helped provide 3,138 surgical procedures and 16,067 dental procedures.

The Capacity Building program helps train local healthcare workers and improve healthcare infrastructure in developing countries. MSC offers training courses on a variety of topics including nutritional agriculture, mental health, safe surgery, proper anesthesia use, and nurse mentoring. In F2021, the charity provided 157,812 total training hours and trained 1,343 people, including 650 people in Liberia, 156 in Senegal, 135 in South Africa, 145 in Guinea, 112 in Togo, 111 in Benin, and 45 virtually.

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Results and Impact

In F2021, Mercy Ships Canada reports that it provided 996 maxillofacial surgical procedures, 430 neurosurgical procedures, and 120 reconstructive plastic surgery procedures. Maxillofacial surgery refers to surgery used to correct diseases, injuries, and defects to the jaw, face, or mouth.

While Ci highlights these key results, they may not be a complete representation of Mercy Ships Canada’s results and impact.

Charity Intelligence has given Mercy Ships Canada a Low impact rating based on demonstrated impact per dollar spent.

Impact Rating: Low

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Finances

In F2021, Mercy Ships Canada received $2.3m in cash donations. The charity received $554k in donated goods-in-kind (19% of total revenue) during the year. Administrative costs are 4% of total revenue excluding investment income. Fundraising costs are 18% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 23%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 77 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

MSC has net funding reserves of $1.9m which can cover annual program costs for around one year and three months.

Charity Intelligence has sent this update to Mercy Ships Canada for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated August 4th, 2022 by Arjun Kapur.

Financial Review


Financial Ratios

Fiscal year ending December
202120202019
Administrative costs as % of revenues 4.4%7.8%7.8%
Fundraising costs as % of donations 18.4%21.4%43.4%
Total overhead spending 22.8%29.1%51.2%
Program cost coverage (%) 128.5%295.2%94.7%

Summary Financial Statements

All figures in $s
202120202019
Donations 2,328,0942,081,0092,187,208
Goods in kind 554,189471,0881,269,762
Investment income 4,0081,447(5,713)
Other income 00279
Total revenues 2,886,2912,553,5443,451,536
Program costs - International 1,447,142513,340771,144
Donated goods exp 554,189471,0881,269,760
Administrative costs 127,374197,902267,908
Fundraising costs 428,283444,616949,545
Other costs 4658201,101
Total spending 2,557,4531,627,7663,259,460
Cash flow from operations 328,838925,778192,076
Capital spending 2,03204,206
Funding reserves 1,858,9931,515,548730,308

Note: Ci reported all realized and unrealized gains (losses) relating to marketable securities and foreign exchange as investment income. This affected revenues by ($6k) in F2019. Ci used the charity’s financial notes to back out amortization and interest expenses from program, administrative, and fundraising costs.

Salary Information

Full-time staff: 10

Avg. compensation: $49,904

Top 10 staff salary range:

$350k +
0
$300k - $350k
0
$250k - $300k
0
$200k - $250k
0
$160k - $200k
0
$120k - $160k
0
$80k - $120k
2
$40k - $80k
3
< $40k
5

Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2021

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Comments & Contact

Comments added by the Charity:

The following comment was added to a previous profile update. Updated comments may be forthcoming.

The current rating does not fully capture the information in the 2020 Annual Report or our updated website. 

Charity Contact

Website: www.mercyships.ca
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tel: 1-866-900-7447

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Charitable Registration Number: 80340 7956 RR0001