Founded in 1982, BC Children’s Hospital Foundation (BCCHF) raises funds for BC Children's Hospital, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, and Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children. It aims to improve children’s health by funding new equipment purchases, research on pediatric diseases, and patient care programs. BC Children’s Hospital is the province’s only hospital that works exclusively with children. BCCHF reports that the hospital serves around 96,000 children each year. In June 2020, Sunny Hill Foundation for Children amalgamated with BCCHF.

In F2021, BC Children’s Hospital Foundation granted $64.4m and had an additional $42.6m in unpaid grant amounts at year end. Its grant funding goes toward three main program areas: Care, Research, and Education.

Care represented 48% of grants. BCCHF raises funds to buy new hospital equipment and support renovations. In F2021, it helped to buy more than 1,500 pieces of telehealth equipment. In August 2020, BCCHF also opened a new facility for Sunny Hill Health Centre, a children’s rehabilitation hospital previously based in East Vancouver. Now housed inside BC Children's Hospital, the new centre helps patients and families access hospital and rehabilitative care services in one location. BCCHF also funds a variety of patient care programs, such as music therapy and meal programs. It provided 2,500 music therapy sessions and 9,000 free meals for patients in F2021.

Research was 48% of grants in F2021. The charity supports research into pediatric diseases, such as childhood cancer and diabetes. In response to the covid-19 pandemic, BCCHF helped to fund 67 new research studies on covid-19 in F2021. BC Children’s Hospital has more than 1,000 researchers on campus, and it recruited 124 new research trainees during the year.

Education made up the remaining 4% of grants. BCCHF offers online resources and funds education programs to support patients and their family members. In F2021, BC Children’s Hospital’s Diabetes Transformation Project (DTP) launched two peer support groups in F2021. One peer group brings together children with diabetes while the other provides support and resources for caregivers. During the year, BCCHF also reported more than 80,500 online event attendees and 450,000 visits to its online mental health resource centre.

During F2021, BCCHF amalgamated with Sunny Hill Foundation for Children and restated its F2020 figures to exclude inter-party transfers. Figures for F2021 and F2020 are presented for the amalgamated charity, while F2019 figures are for BCCHF only.

BC Children’s Hospital Foundation is a Major 100 charity, one of Canada’s largest charities in terms of donations. It received $61.3m in donations in F2021, as well as $2.5m in government wage subsidies. Administrative costs are 11% of revenues (less investment income) and fundraising costs are 17% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 28%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 72 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

BCCHF has $445.0m in funding reserves, of which $133.4m is donor-endowed. Excluding donor-endowed funds, it can cover around 5.4 years of annual grant costs. The charity’s funding reserves contributed $71.1m in investment income in F2021, at an estimated rate of return of 20% (compared to an investment loss of $7.8m at a return of -2% in F2020). Over the last nine years, Ci estimates that BCCHF’s investment returns have averaged 6%.

BCCHF’s capital spending is negative since it received $1.2m from the sale of lottery prize homes, exceeding $95k in capital purchases.

BC Children’s Hospital Foundation discloses related party transactions. In F2021, it reported grants of $107.0m to BC Children’s Hospital, of which $42.6m was unpaid at year end. This results in total grant spending of $64.4m during the year. BCCHF also receives rent-free office space from the hospital. Its auditors state that the fair value of rent is $795k each year, which is not reflected in the charity’s operations.

According to its most recent CRA filing in F2020, BCCHF uses external fundraisers. It paid external fundraisers $1.9m to raise $3.7m in F2020, at a cost of $0.50 per dollar raised.

Charity Intelligence has sent this update to BC Children’s Hospital Foundation for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 3, 2021 by Eric Zhao.