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Canadian charities

Vancouver, BC · Private foundation

Mary and Gordon Christopher Foundation

To support local charities

C$330k
Granted FY2024still arriving
12
Grants FY2024still arriving
2
Regions reached
C$100k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02Your edgeRead
03Your fieldRead
01What you fund
01FY2024 · 12 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under C$10k5 grants · C$18k
  • C$10k–50k4 grants · C$90k
  • C$50k–250k3 grants · C$222k
C$20,000
Median grant
2
Regions reached
C$293
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
WAYSIDE HOUSE OF HAMILTONC$100,000
LUMARA GRIEF & BEREAVEMENT CARE SOCIETYC$72,000
PACIFIC SALMON FOUNDTIONC$50,000
PALS ADULTS SERVICE SOCIETYC$25,000
JUVENILE DIABETES RESEARCH FOUNDATIONC$25,000
PALS AUTISM SOCIETYC$20,000
GROWING CHEFS SOCIETYC$20,000
HEADSUP GUYSC$5,000
PACIFIC ASSISTANCE DOGS SOCIETYC$5,000
FIRST UNITED CHURCH COMMUNITY MINISTRYC$5,000
COVENANT HOUSE VANCOUVERC$2,500
SHAUGHNESSY HEIGHTS UNITED CHURCHC$500
02Your edge
repeat funding

Who you back again

Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.

64%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
C$1.9M · 21 repeat orgsC$1.1M to everyone else

21 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 13 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

21
14

Total granted

C$1.9M
C$905k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+26%
+26%

Still filing today

90%
100%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 52% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; C$160k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.”

Backed again, and grew

  • ZR
    ZAJAC RANCH SOCIETY
    6× · 2017–2022 · C$340k · revenue +30%
  • LG
    Lumara Grief & Bereavement Care Society
    7× · 2018–2024 · C$264k · revenue +85%
  • JD
    Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
    7× · 2017–2024 · C$210k · revenue +6%

Funded once

  • PS
    PRAXIS SPINAL CORD INSTITUTEgraduated
    one grant, 2022 · C$250k · revenue +37%
  • VL
    Vancouver Library Public Library Foundation
    one grant, 2018 · C$250k · revenue -37%
  • TN
    The Nature Trust of BCgraduated
    one grant, 2018 · C$250k · revenue +374%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent CRA filings.

03Your field

The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matches that aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
Vancouver Academy of Music Foundation
—
2
Victoria Symphony Society

The Victoria Symphony Society provides orchestral music to southern Vancouver Island. It provides concerts and educates people through its outreach programs and contributes to the artistic and cultural endeavours of different communities.

—
3
Pacific Public Health Foundation

The pacific public health foundation works in collaboration with the bc centre for disease control (bccdc) and more broadly the health sector to support public health in bc by funding and facilitating evidence-based work that has an…

—
4
Vancouver Jazz Orchestra Society

Conducts a competition to award scholarship to bc youth studying music. provide educational workshops master classes and seminars to young musicians in british columbia.

—
5
Victoria Summer Music Festival Society

The Victoria Summer Music Festival (VSMF) brings local Canadian and international musicians to Victoria to perform high-calibre chamber music. In 2024 the VSMF presented five evening concerts and one afternoon concert during July and…

—
6
Pro Musica Society of Vancouver

Vancouver Pro Musica Society's principal activities include presentation and promotion of new works by British Columbia composers. Since its inception in 1986 the organization has proudly presented hundreds of premieres by talented…

—
7
Bc Cancer Foundation

The bc cancer foundation is the fundraising partner of bc cancer and the largest charitable funder of cancer research in this province. we enable donors to make contributions to leading-edge research that has a direct impact on…

—
8
Indian Summer Arts Society

Indian Summer Arts Society commissions and presents significant local national and international programming that catalyzes and inspires dialogue and global citizenship and reflects Vancouver's position as a harbour for diverse arts ideas…

—
9
Vancouver Fringe Theatre Society

The society produces the Vancouver Fringe Festival a 12 day theatre festival each September. The Vancouver Fringe serves as the home for independent performing arts in Vancouver following the Fringe Theatre Movement that spans across North…

—
10
Vancouver New Music Society

Over the 2023-24 season vancouver new music presented many free community based events. these included community workshops public installations and online presentations. in addition the 2023-24 series included many paid concerts

—
11
Vancouver Philharmonic Society

The Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra is a full symphonic orchestra whose members are amateur musicians and students. The members perform in and manage the orchestra as volunteers. Five concerts of orchestral mostly classical music are…

—
12
The Coastal Jazz and Blues Society

Vancouver international jazz festival year-round jazz concerts and related educational programs.

—

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Sarah Mclachlan School of Music Society and the most unlike its peers is Shaughnessy Heights United Church. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

02the grantee network

36 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2024.

Each one resolved to its own CRA returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2024, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 36 of the 39 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
8
Early backer (in before they grew)
36/36
Grantees still filing
28/36
Grew since you first funded

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%C$1.0MC$10MC$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetZAJAC RANCH SOCIETY — C$340,000 over 6y, 15% of budgetLumara Grief & Bereavement Care Society — C$264,000 over 7y, 8.6% of budgetPRAXIS SPINAL CORD INSTITUTE — C$250,000 over 1y, 3.1% of budgetVancouver Library Public Library Foundation — C$250,000 over 1y, 8.3% of budgetThe Nature Trust of BC — C$250,000 over 1y, 2.9% of budgetJuvenile Diabetes Research Foundation — C$210,000 over 7y, 0.2% of budgetKIDSAFE PROJECT SOCIETY — C$153,150 over 5y, 2.5% of budgetPALS AUTISM SCHOOL — C$141,667 over 8y, 1.2% of budgetWAYSIDE HOUSE OF HAMILTON — C$100,000 over 1y, 3.7% of budgetPALS ADULTS SERVICE SOCIETY — C$85,333 over 5y, 0.9% of budgetEarly Music Vancouver — C$65,000 over 5y, 1.5% of budgetBC WOMEN'S HEALTH FOUNDATION — C$63,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetGROWING CHEFS SOCIETY — C$57,000 over 6y, 2.0% of budgetVANCOUVER OPERA — C$55,000 over 5y, 0.3% of budgetVancouver Symphony Orchestra — C$55,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetSHAUGHNESSY HEIGHTS UNITED CHURCH — C$50,500 over 2y, 5.6% of budgetPACIFIC SALMON FOUNDTION — C$50,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetMUSIC IN THE MORNING — C$45,000 over 5y, 26% of budgetCOVENANT HOUSE VANCOUVER — C$28,500 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetSAINT JAMES MUSIC ACADEMY — C$25,000 over 4y, 0.8% of budgetMamas for Mamas — C$20,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetSarah McLachlan School of Music Society — C$20,000 over 2y, 0.6% of budgetVictoria Foundation — C$15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCalgary Health Trust — C$15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetOne to One Literacy Society — C$15,000 over 1y, 5.4% of budgetVancouver Foundation — C$15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetOntario Association of Food Banks — C$15,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetFIRST UNITED CHURCH COMMUNITY MINISTRY — C$14,300 over 5y, 0.1% of budgetVANCOUVER CHAMBER CHOIR — C$13,500 over 5y, 0.7% of budgetCANUCK PLACE CHILDREN'S HOSPICE — C$10,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetPlastic Oceans Foundation Canada — C$10,000 over 1y, 8.4% of budgetTHE DAVID SUZUKI FOUNDATION — C$10,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetSalvation Army — C$6,000 over 2y, 4.5% of budgetVancouver Recital Society — C$5,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetPACIFIC ASSISTANCE DOGS SOCIETY — C$5,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budget
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them

A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Nicola Wealth Private…Vancity Community Fou…United Way British Co…Zlc FoundationOcean Wise Conservati…Vancouver FoundationThe Andrew Mahon Foun…The Hamber FoundationThe Victoria Foundati…Raymond James Canada …Alan and Gwendoline P…Seedlings Foundation
Nicola Wealth Private Giving FoundationBC16.7× affinity17 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Nicola Wealth Private Giving Foundation · Vancity Community Foundation · United Way British Columbia · Zlc Foundation · Ocean Wise Conservation Association · Vancouver Foundation · The Andrew Mahon Foundation · The Hamber Foundation · The Victoria Foundation · Raymond James Canada Foundation · Alan and Gwendoline Pyatt Foundation · Seedlings Foundation

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from the Canada Revenue Agency’s published T3010 data — your own annual information return and the multi-year returns of the 39 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year) — each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program description on its T3010; we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without a BN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

Generated from your T3010 annual information return for the fiscal period ending 2024-12-31, as published by the Canada Revenue Agency in 2024. Amounts are Canadian dollars, as filed and never converted. Registered as a private foundation under foundations.

Source object 851559369:2024-12-31 · View the T3010 on the CRA register

Play a game based on Mary and Gordon Christopher’s filings →