Ve'ahavta: The Canadian Jewish Humanitarian & Relief Committee

About Ve'ahavta: The Canadian Jewish Humanitarian & Relief Committee:

Founded in 1996, Ve’ahavta is a Jewish humanitarian organization that seeks to promote positive change in the lives of people of all faiths who are marginalized by poverty. Ve’ahavta provides a variety of programs, such as feeding the homeless and hosting arts programming in Toronto, and providing grants to crisis relief organizations abroad.

The charity's main program, in terms of expenditures, is the Ve’ahavta Street Academy. The street academy is a program that seeks to instill positive change in the lives of marginalized individuals by promoting a safe space where they can renew their sense of self worth and plan to further their personal goals. This academy has seen 76% of its graduates advance to education, training, employment and volunteer opportunities.

Ve'ahavta's second largest program is its mobile outreach program, a van with outreach workers and volunteers who interact with the homeless. In F2016, Ve’ahavta reports 7,349 interactions with clients and provided 3,920 sandwiches along with clothing, sleeping bags and essential supplies.

Ve’ahavta hosts a yearly creative writing contest. This contest received 136 submissions in F2016, competing for 12 cash prizes The charity also conducts a professional development day, training 32 educational professionals from 11 Jewish schools to learn how to better educate kids on indigenous history and culture. The charity also disbursed $37k towards crisis relief in Fort McMurray and Syria.

Financial Review:

Ve’ahavta is considered a medium-cap charity with donations of $1.9m in F2016. The charity’s administrative costs are 38% of revenues and fundraising costs are 14% of donations. For every dollar donated, 49 cents goes towards the charity’s programs, falling outside of Ci’s reasonable range. The charity has $356k of funding reserves. This can cover just under 4 months of program costs. 

This charity report is an update that is being reviewed by Ve'ahavta. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 13, 2017 by Josh Lam.