Top 100
Charity Grades by Sector
Methodology
The 2020 MoneySense Charity 100 uses an updated but familiar methodology that balances financial measures and transparency. We rank charities using standardized financial data from Charity Intelligence Canada combined with filings from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Our final score weights charity finances at 60% and transparency at 40%, reflecting both fiscal responsibility and the clarity organizations provide to donors and the public.
Unlike last year’s report, which relied on 2016 fiscal data, the 2020 Charity 100 incorporates the most recent audited or standardized data available for each organization — whether from the 2017, 2018 or 2019 fiscal year. We matched Charity Intelligence’s standardized financial reports with CRA filings to create a fuller, comparable picture of each charity’s revenue, expenses and executive compensation. To keep the list focused and comparable, we filtered out organizations with annual revenues under $2 million and entities not typically considered charities for the purposes of this ranking (for example, many universities and churches).
Inclusion in the Charity 100 requires an independent assessment by Charity Intelligence, a third-party watchdog that produces consistent, standardized financial reports based on charities’ financial statements. Where available, these statements are audited by independent accountants, which improves comparability and reliability compared with CRA filings alone. We do, however, use CRA data for employer-reported wages and related information when that data is the most consistent source across organizations.
Transparency: 40 points overall
Transparency accounts for 40 points of the total score and is guided chiefly by Charity Intelligence’s ratings on two dimensions: financial transparency and social results reporting. Together these measures reflect how clearly charities share financial documents and how well they communicate program outcomes and impact information to donors and stakeholders.
Financial transparency: 10 points
This subscore rewards charities that publish audited financial statements online for the most recent two years or more. When organizations make audited statements readily available, donors can more easily verify how funds are used and assess fiscal stewardship. Full credit is awarded to charities that meet this standard; lower transparency scores apply when audited reports are absent or incomplete.
Social results reporting: 30 points
Social results reporting evaluates how thoroughly a charity communicates what it does and the outcomes of its programs. This is not a judgment of program effectiveness, but a measure of the organization’s willingness and ability to report on activities, outputs and beneficiary outcomes through websites, annual reports and other public communications. Charities that provide clear, evidence-based descriptions of program goals, activities and results earn higher transparency scores.
Charity finances: 60 points overall
The financial portion of the score focuses on efficiency, fundraising costs and the balance between program spending and overhead. These categories together measure how efficiently a charity turns donations into program delivery and how responsibly it manages operating and fundraising expenditures.
Financial efficiency: 30 points
Where charities report administrative and fundraising costs separately, we award up to 30 points for the combined efficiency of these expenditures relative to annual revenue. This encourages clear accounting and rewards organizations that keep combined overhead and fundraising costs reasonable compared with their total resources.
Charity efficiency: 15 points
This metric measures the share of annual revenue spent on administrative costs alone. Administrative spending is necessary — staffing, systems and governance enable program delivery — but excessive administration can detract from mission spending. Charities spending between 2% and 12.5% of revenue on administration receive full marks for this category. Organizations spending 12.6% to 22.4% receive partial credit, and those below 2% or above 22.5% receive no points.
Fundraising efficiency: 15 points
Fundraising efficiency assesses the cost to raise each dollar of donations and special-event revenue. If fundraising costs account for less than 15% of donated revenue, the charity receives the full 15 points. Scores decline on a sliding scale for fundraising ratios up to 35%, and charities with fundraising costs above 35% receive no points. This metric helps donors understand how much of their gift is consumed by fundraising efforts versus program work.
Combined efficiency: 30 points
For charities that don’t separate administration and fundraising costs, we use the combined overhead figure as a percentage of total revenue. Organizations with combined costs between 3% and 20% receive full marks; those between 20% and 50% receive partial credit; and combined costs exceeding 50% result in no points for this measure. This ensures charities are evaluated even when reporting practices differ.
Funding needs: 15 points
Charities must maintain some reserves to manage cash flow and unforeseen events, but excessive reserves can indicate funds that could be deployed to mission work today. We award full points to charities with less than three years’ worth of operating costs in reserve, partial points for three to five years, and zero points for five or more years of reserves.
Salaries: 15 points
Executive and senior staff compensation is measured relative to organizational size to identify outliers. Very low or very high executive pay can indicate issues with sustainability or compensation practices. Charities with executive director salaries below $80,000 lose points regardless of size. For organizations with total spending under $4 million, any employee earning $200,000 or more reduces the score. For charities with spending between $4 million and $12 million, the threshold is $300,000; for those with $12 million to $20 million in costs, the threshold is $350,000. There is no cap applied to charities with annual costs above $20 million. Unlike prior editions, we did not benchmark salaries against peers with similar revenue due to variation in fiscal years across 2017–2019 data used in this report.