For every dollar donated to CNIB's 'urgent' guide dog campaign, it spends 52 cents on fundraising

Jodi Laycock wasn't looking for a pet or companion. The 53-year-old legally blind woman wanted a guide dog — often called a seeing-eye dog — because she was tired of all the bruises, cuts and broken bones from her walks alone.

"It's so easy to get injured when you can't see what you're doing," said Laycock, who broke bones in her leg, knee and foot in three separate falls near her home in Luseland, Sask., 225 kilometres west of Saskatoon. "You're constantly getting bruised and banged. I looked like somebody beat me on a regular basis."

Laycock says her guide dog Shadow, a black Labrador golden retriever mix from CNIB Guide Dogs, keeps her safe. 

"It is priceless," she said.

There is a price tag, however, and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) has been making an "urgent appeal" for donations to its guide dog program for more than two years to solve what it calls a "crisis-level" demand.

Overall, more than half of what CNIB takes in from donations is spent on fundraising costs, and finding out exactly what proportion goes to the puppies is difficult.

The CNIB is the new kid on the block in the guide dog industry, even though the 104-year-old not-for-profit has a long history of providing many different services to blind and partially sighted Canadians. It started with six dogs in 2017 and trained 56 guide dog pairs in its first five years of service. Some additional dogs that weren't up to the task were turned into buddy dogs.

CNIB invites Canadians to sponsor a "puppy with purpose" so it can rapidly expand its program from 15 guide dogs in the past year to 150 a year going forward. It says it costs $50,000 to support a guide dog from birth until retirement at around age 10.

CNIB says demand for guide dogs in Canada is at "crisis levels":

Charity Intelligence Canada, a charity watchdog that aims to help Canadians "be informed and give intelligently," reviewed CNIB's online financial statements from 2021. The accounting applies to the entire CNIB organization and not just its guide dog program. It found CNIB collected roughly $29.1 million in donations and spent about $15 million on fundraising costs.

That would mean that, for every dollar donated, CNIB spent 52 cents on fundraising and just 46 cents on programming, with the rest on overhead and administration, said Charity Intelligence's managing director Kate Behan.

"Only 46 cents goes to the cause.… So you, as a Canadian, have to ask, is that reasonable to you?" asked Behan, who said CNIB should be more transparent. "Is it reasonable that such a large Canadian charity spends so much, year after year, on fundraising costs?"

CNIB's chief operating officer Angela Bonfanti said the figures are "accurate," but don't allow for detailed reporting of additional ways their large organization invests in helping people. She said the $15 million in fundraising includes "stewarding partnerships" and not just those television ads with furry puppies.

Bonfanti said the "start-up cost" of attracting a donor can be high, but that donors continue to give for an average of eight years at no additional cost to CNIB.