Donor generosity allowed some of Canada's largest food banks to build up record reserve balances during the pandemic, but some are already watching the money drain away.
"It's a perfect storm of more people needing food and a huge amount of people that have no more discretionary income to give to charities," said Long.
That's because demand is outpacing food donations and each new meal has to be paid for in cash, causing "exponential growth" in food purchasing costs. Daily Bread's 2023 financials, which were approved last week, showed a narrower operating loss than Hetherington was expecting thanks to strong fundraising. He's expecting a $7 million loss for 2024.
Bahen said that created a "trust fund" for food banks and there's always a risk that trust funds get bloated. Donors might want to compare the immediate results they'd get from a charity that will spend their money now to the delayed impact of saving for the future.60% more people per month expected to use food banks, other programs in 2023"I have great confidence that donations given to food banks do more good than many other charities in Canada," said Bahen.
Higher-yield investments have allowed food banks to increase their earnings through interest payments and dividends, but that's come with risk. Price fluctuations shaved about $3.2 million off the market value of those investments in 2022.
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