Our commitment to you

We fight local poverty by supporting people in the neighbourhoods they live in across Peel, Toronto and York Region. We work to ensure that gifts to United Way help meet urgent needs and bring about long-term systemic change so that every person in every community has the opportunities, access and connections they need to build a good life—regardless of their income, the neighbourhood they live in, or their social identity.

In Fiscal Year 2022-2023 (FY 22-23), overall distributions and community programs represented $115.2 million, per United Way Greater Toronto (UWGT) Financial Statements, Statement of Operations. The breakdown is as follows:

MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS

IMPLEMENTING A MULTI-YEAR FISCAL SUSTAINABILITY PLAN

In response to the changing philanthropic landscape, UWGT continued the implementation of its Board-Approved Strategic Roadmap, “Now, New, Next,” with the following business priorities:

1. Become a centre of excellence in inclusive philanthropy
2. Develop leading cross-sector solutions
3. Use engagement as a tool for change
4. Adopt enterprise insight decisions
5. Turn outward to work with community

In addition to adapting to the “new normal” resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic environment and financial uncertainties, including fears of a recession, UWGT remained committed to its business priorities, with FY 22-23 being Year 3 of the five-year Board-Approved Strategic Roadmap. In fact, the “new normal” is pushing UWGT to transform at a faster pace.

In FY 22-23, UWGT fulfilled its financial commitments to the Community Investment, Community Services and Program Support streams—working together with its network of agencies and community partners for solutions to meet existing, urgent and emerging community needs. UWGT’s unique funding model offers flexible funding for programming and core operational support, ensuring stability to the sector while meeting community and resident needs, and mobilizing solutions. UWGT once again saw the resilience of its donor and volunteer base remain strong throughout the uncertainties of the current environment. And finally, as a trusted partner to all levels of government, UWGT was again the recipient of additional funding from certain government programs to leverage its grant management expertise and knowledge of local community needs.

UWGT remains committed to fiscal prudence as the foundation of the Board-Approved Strategic Roadmap, and even through the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial uncertainties of the current environment, UWGT’s financial position remains stable:

• FY 22-23 was the third consecutive year of achieving at least a balanced budget. This financial turnaround has been the result of restructuring and cost-savings initiatives from the past three years.
• Reserves remain at healthy levels and sufficient to backstop the three-year and five-year financial commitments of UWGT to its network of agencies and the ongoing sustainability of its operations when looking forward.
• With liquidity being top of mind in this COVID-19 pandemic environment, UWGT’s asset portfolio is primarily held in cash or cash equivalents, thus mitigating any liquidity and price risks due to changes in the market.

Looking ahead to FY 23-24, UWGT will focus on stability and accelerating the implementation of its Board-Approved Strategic Roadmap with a revenue growth mindset and focus.

FINANCE, AUDIT & RISK COMMITTEE REPORT

GOVERNANCE & FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY

UWGT has a strong, independent Finance, Audit and Risk Committee comprised of seven members. The Committee meets annually—independent of management—with KPMG, UWGT’s auditors.

The Committee oversees the audit and financial controls, budget and financial management, investment management, risk management and digital transformation workplan on behalf of the Board of Trustees.

The UWGT Audited Financial Statements consolidate the financial results of UWGT’s operations, capital expenditures and The Tomorrow Fund™. They are prepared in accordance with Canadian Accounting Standards for Not-For-Profit (ASNPO) and are also in alignment to United Way Centraide Canada’s Transparency, Accountability and Financial Reporting (TAFR) standards.

As United Way adapted to the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020 and pivoted to a digital office and remote workforce, KPMG issued an Unqualified Audit Report, and similar to previous years, KPMG concurred with management that UWGT met the requirements of being a going concern for this coming fiscal year, FY 23-24.

Key items in KPMG’s audit review and findings included:

• Fraud risk for management override of controls and fraud risk in revenue recognition: no issues or concerns were identified.
• Control deficiencies: no significant deficiencies in internal control over financial reporting were identified.
• Special purpose audits for five agreements funded by the government for which UWGT is the program administrator and/or service provider:
  
  
  1. Toronto Enterprise Fund
     • Agreement with the City of Toronto: ending in FY 22-23
  2. Reaching Home, York Region
     • Five-year agreement with The Regional Municipality of York: ending in FY 23-24.
  3. Peel Newcomer Strategy Group
     • Five-year agreement with Canada-IRCC: ending in FY 24-25
     • Annual Agreement with Region of Peel
  4. Hydro Settlement Fund
  5. Youth Challenge Fund
  
  No issues were identified by KPMG when performing the special purpose audits for these five agreements.

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

UWGT’s continued investments in its network of 300 agencies and community partners was again anchored by the diversification of its fundraising sources—with partners in over 950 workplaces, 2,200 volunteers and over 85,000 workplace, corporate and individual donors that contributed to this robust and sustainable financial health in FY 22-23.

Additional funding from certain government programs and pro-bono support ranging from legal services to donated media advertising space, added to this extraordinary outpouring of generosity in this third unprecedented year of the COVID-19 pandemic environment.

FY 22-23 RESULTS & RECENT TRENDS

Overall Revenue

In this third unprecedented year of the COVID-19 pandemic environment, Overall Revenue was at $134.8 million [Items 1, 2 & 3] when excluding UWGT’s activities for its investment portfolio, i.e., $3 million [Item 4].

The $134.8 million for FY 22-23—when excluding $$$ from Investment Activities [Item 4], compares to the previous year of $142.2 million. This is a decrease of ($7.4 million), which is driven by:

• [Item 1]: Donor-directed designations to other United Ways and charities—year-over-year decrease of ($2.0 million).
• [Item 2]: COVID-19 Pandemic and emergency revenue from government—year-over-year decrease of ($5.5 million).
• [Item 3]: Government grants and disbursements—year-over-year decrease of ($0.8 million).

When considering the above, “Core” Revenues—also known as Community Investment Revenues—to UWGT were relatively flat.

The Fundraising Cost-Revenue Ratio (CRR) continued to be low at 15.1 per cent with continued focus on operational efficiency and achieving UWGT’s objective of being less than 20 per cent.

Overall Distributions & Community Programs

Total distributions were at $115.2 million, a decrease from the $123.3 million from the previous year, when additional one-time investments were funded from the Local Love Fund at the peak of the pandemic. UWGT’s investments through the Community Services Sector Strategy to poverty-fighting anchor agencies and Community Program Grants of $66.9 million is a unique United Way approach to providing stability and flexibility to the network of agencies that support people who are in, or at risk of, falling into poverty.

In addition, UWGT has continued to deepen its investments in Indigenous, Black and other structurally disadvantaged groups. UWGT will also continue to support neighbourhood solutions at the neighbourhood level in partnership with corporate, government and community sectors.

A few highlights to note and which are in alignment with the Board-Approved Strategic Roadmap:

• Delivered over and above the financial commitments of $66.9 million to its network of agencies and community partners with five-year and three-year investments of stable and flexible funding.
• Decrease year-over-year was driven by the following:
  • Decrease in COVID-19 emergency funding as we moved from emergency to recovery
  • Decrease in donor-directed designations to other United Ways and charities
  • Decrease in government-funded emergency programs associated with COVID-19 Pandemic Revenue

Operating Surplus

When including UWGT’s activities for its investment portfolio, the operating surplus was $3.5 million—the third consecutive year of achieving at least a balanced budget. The make-up of this operating surplus was $0.5 million from Operations and $3 million from investment activities related to the management of the reserves and The Tomorrow Fund™, i.e., the investment portfolio for endowments to UWGT. This year’s operating surplus enabled UWGT to maintain its liquidity position and reserves at healthy levels. Please refer to the Statement of Operations.

Achieving this financial position has allowed UWGT to commit and confirm community investments of at least $66.9 million to its network of agencies and community partners for the period of April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024. This is an important strategy and commitment to deliver critical services with continued investments in local neighbourhood solutions in partnership with corporate, government and community sectors.

Going Forward

Prudent financial management at UWGT remains a priority, with its reserves being maintained at healthy levels and sufficient to backstop the three-year and five-year financial commitments of UWGT to its network of agencies and the ongoing sustainability of its operations when looking forward.

Deemed as a going concern for the year ahead, the levels of the reserves are financial indicators of the health and sustainability for UWGT, especially with the financial uncertainties of the macroeconomic environment, including COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, market volatility and fears of recession.

Read our full Audited Financial Statements, FY 22-23 for more details.

2022–23 Board and Committees

We thank our Board of Trustees and Committee members for their wisdom, commitment and passion to steer our organization in the achievement of our mission.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

OFFICERS OF THE CORPORATION

TRUSTEES

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

GOVERNANCE & HUMAN RESOURCES COMMITTEE

COMMUNITY IMPACT COMMITTEE

FINANCE, AUDIT & RISK COMMITTEE

STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE

*Indicates that the Committee member also serves on the United Way Greater Toronto Board of Trustees.