Founded in 2000, Earth Rangers Foundation’s (Earth Rangers) mission is to create a generation of conservationists. Earth Rangers teaches children about the environment, encourages them to be hopeful about the future, and gives them the confidence to act. It aims to mobilize children towards protecting animals and improving the environment, ultimately protecting biodiversity.

Earth Rangers' School Outreach program delivers 45-minute school assemblies for children in grades 1 to 6. The program teaches students the importance of protecting biodiversity and highlights conservation initiatives in Canada. The School Outreach program also makes classroom visits that provide hands-on learning on various environmental topics to students in grades 3 to 6. In 2017, Earth Rangers held school assemblies in 873 schools, reaching 252,277 students. Schools in its School Outreach program included 107 French-language schools and 27 Indigenous schools.

The Earth Rangers Foundation’s Membership program requires that children sign up to become an Earth Ranger. The charity then provides its members with activities, communications, and conservation projects. Earth Rangers’ Missions program provides short-term assignments for its members, which are designed to keep children and their families engaged throughout the year. Earth Rangers reports that it gained 26,000 new members in 2017, increasing its total memberships to over 175,000. Its members accepted 61,171 environmental Missions in 2017, such as recycling batteries, organizing shoreline clean-ups, and planting pollinator gardens.

Each year, Earth Rangers’ Bring Back the Wild program teaches its members the importance of protecting animals and empowers them to start a fundraising campaign for the animals.

Results and Impact: Earth Rangers surveyed 100 schools and found that 63% strongly agree that the Earth Rangers school assembly program is relevant to the school curriculum and 87% strongly agree that the assemblies effectively build conservation awareness. A survey conducted in partnership with Ipsos Canada revealed that 89% of Earth Rangers’ members believe that if they work hard, they can protect animals from extinction, compared to 57% of non members. Earth Ranger members were also found to engage more in environmental activities, with 60% recycling batteries, compared to 39% for non members. The charity reports its Bring Back the Wild Program has resulted in the protection of 33 different species.

Earth Rangers Foundation is a medium-sized charity, with donations of $3.9m in 2017. Its administrative and fundraising costs are 24% of revenues. Administrative and fundraising costs are not broken out in Earth Rangers’ financial statements but are provided in its CRA filings. The 2017 filings were not available at the time this report was written, so Ci reported combined administrative and fundraising costs. For every dollar donated to the charity, 76 cents go to the cause, falling within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. The charity’s funding reserves of $2.1m result in a program cost coverage ratio of 59%. This ratio means that funding reserves can cover just over 7 months of annual programs.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Earth Rangers Foundation for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 10, 2018 by Joeyanne Cheung.