About your donation to Federated Health Charities

Federated Health Charities is committed to being transparent to our donors about our processes and how we manage your donations. We believe there should be no mystery about how we operate or how your donations are used.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about the path of your donation, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Where do Federated Health donations come from?

All the funds raised by Federated Health Charities come from individual donors.

The majority of Federated Health Charities donations come from current or retired provincial employees in the Ontario Public Service (OPS), the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), and participating crown agencies, like Metrolinx and the Ontario Science Centre. Federated Health Charities does also receive some donations from community members.

Our donors support us through payroll pledges, one-time donations, and by participating in special events and buying lottery tickets as part of the annual Federated Health Charities campaign held across the OPS, OPP and participating agencies each spring.

How are donations distributed to our charities?

Donations are divided between our 21 member charities in two ways.

1. Allocated donations:
When you donate to Federated Health Charities, you can direct your donation to a specific charity or charities. These are called allocated donations.

100% of allocated donations go to the charity or charities indicated by the donor. A significant portion of the donations each charity receives come from allocated donations.

2. Non-allocated donations:
Rather than donate to a specific charity or charities, donors can choose to give their money to all 21 Federated Health Charities. These are called non-allocated donations.

Non-allocated donations are divided among our 21 charities using a formula created by the charities themselves. 60% of the donation is evenly split 21 ways and 40% of the donation is split according to the percentage of allocated donations each charity received in the previous year’s campaign.

For example, a charity that received 9% of all allocated donations in the previous year’s campaign would receive 9% of the 40% portion of the donation.

How much of my donation goes to pay administrative costs?

100% of the donations we receive go directly to our charities. Federated Health Charities does not keep any of the donations we receive. Whether we receive $1 or $1 million, 100% of donations received by Federated Health Charities are passed on to our member charities. When you donate to Federated Health Charities, you know your gift will end up in the hands of your charity of choice.

How is Federated Health Charities Funded?

Federated Health Charities is tremendously grateful to provincial employees and the Ontario Public Service for the support they provide in running our campaign. Because of their generosity and volunteerism, Federated Health Charities can keep our overhead costs low.

Federated Health Charities is committed to running our campaign on a modest budget. We do not spend money on giving away swag or paid fundraising. Federated Health Charities was founded in 1983 by OPS members as a vehicle to raise funds for Ontario health charities. Forty years later, our annual campaign is still organized by and for provincial employees who volunteer their time, on top of their normal duties, to raise funds to support the work of our 21 participating health charities.

For the overhead expenses we do have, our participating charities each pay a portion of these costs out of their established fundraising budgets. Our connection to the Ontario Public Service means that we can fundraise among province employees at a greater and more cost-effective scale than our participating charities can individually, which saves our charities time and money. The amount each charity contributes to our costs is based on the same formula that is used to divide non-allocated donations. Each of our participating charities contributes based on the percentage of allocated donations they received from the previous year’s campaign. This means that each charity receives the same return on their investment.