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Canadian charities

Victoria, BC · Private foundation

The Sara Spencer Foundation

Provide gifts to qualified donees.

C$12k
Granted FY2024still arriving
8
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
Regions reached
C$2k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02Your edgeRead
03Your fieldRead
01What you fund
01FY2024 · 8 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

C$2,000
Median grant
1
Regions reached
C$297k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
VICTORIA BRAIN INJURY SOCIETYC$2,000
SAANICH VOLUNTEER SERVICES SOCIETYC$2,000
LIVING EDGE COMMUNITY CHURCHC$2,000
JAMES BAY HEALTH & COMMUNITY SERVICES SOCIETYC$2,000
PANDORA ARTS COLLECTIVE SOCIETYC$1,000
OAKLANDS COMMUNITY ASSOCIATIONC$1,000
STORY STUDIO WRITING SOCIETYC$1,000
MENTAL HEALTH RECOVERY PARTNERS SOCIETY SVIC$1,000
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.

48%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
C$36k · 10 repeat orgsC$39k to everyone else

10 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2024, 5 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

10
22

Total granted

C$36k
C$35k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+51%
+73%

Still filing today

90%
82%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 67% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; C$4k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’23’24
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

  • MH
    MENTAL HEALTH RECOVERY PARTNERS SOCIETY SOUTH VAN. ISLAND
    4× · 2018–2024 · C$5k · revenue +163%
  • LE
    LIVING EDGE COMMUNITY CHURCH
    3× · 2021–2024 · C$5k · revenue +9%
  • VR
    Victoria Rainbow Kitchen Society
    3× · 2018–2020 · C$5k · revenue +119%

Funded once

  • SC
    SHELBOURNE COMMUNITY KITCHENgraduated
    one grant, 2020 · C$4k · revenue +338%
  • CP
    CONNECTIONS PLACE SOCIETY
    one grant, 2020 · C$3k
  • SC
    SPINAL CORD INJURY SOCIETY OF BCgraduated
    one grant, 2019 · C$2k · revenue +42%

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 Island Integrated Counselling and Community Services Society

Affordable individual and group counselling services to residents of Nanaimo and surrounding communities. Awareness and education about mental health and emotional health wellness issues. Development of future mental health practitioners…

—
2
Victoria Sexual Assault Centre Society

VSAC provides crisis intervention justice-related support services and counselling programs for those affected by sexual assault and/or childhood sexual abuse. The Sexual Assault Response Team provides 24-hour emotional support to recent…

—
3
Oak Bay Volunteer Services Society

Oak Bay Volunteer Services Society (OBVS) provides free one-to-one services and programs to help improve or maintain independent living. Services support the needs of older adults individuals living with physical and/or mental health…

—
4
Richmond Mental Health Consumer & Friends Society

Peer Support Program (PSP) We provide one-to-one support and encouragement to Richmond-based mental health consumers who are recovering from a mental illness and receiving mental health services. Peer Support Social Group (PSSG) The PSSG…

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5
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority

The role of the vcha is to promote and provide for the physical mental and social well-being of people who live in the vancouver coastal region and through referral from outside the region.

—
6
Greater Victoria Police Victim Services Society

Greater victoria police victim services (th 'society') is a local organization whose purpose involves working with police to help people impacted by crime and trauma. mandated services include critical incident response criminal justice…

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7
1UP Victoria Single Parent Resource Centre Society

Core programs provide up to ten free counselling sessions on a one-on-one basis for single parents. Also offered is a suite of life skills courses and workshops parenting skills development courses and parenting support groups. A Peer…

—
8
Victoria Society for Children With Autism

Providing programs to caregivers and parents of autistic children including a caregiver respite family food bank caregiver support events community autism library and family support events.

—
9
Burnaby Seniors Outreach Services Society

Promote the emotional health and well-being of seniors through the support of their peers thereby enhancing their quality of life encouraging seniors' independence self esteem and individual goals. Programs include: Volunteer Peer support…

—
10
Victoria Restorative Justice Society

Facilitation of restorative processes to address the harms resulting from crime and violence which can be used as a diversion from - or in conjunction with - the traditional justice system. Referrals come from Victoria Esquimalt Oak Bay…

—
11
Pacific Post-Partum Support Society

Free telephone and text support to prenatal/postpartum mothers fathers and new parents experiencing depression and/or anxiety and to their families. Support groups throughout the Lower Mainland of BC. Support groups for new parents in…

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12
North Shore Keep Well Society

The socitey provides community based wellness programs for adults (55+) on bc's north shore (north and west vancouver). utilizing drop-in sites at eight locations across the north shore the program's promote health mobility and well-being…

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For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Saanich Volunteer Services Society and the most unlike its peers is Fom Music Society. 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

30 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. 30 of the 35 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)
16
Early backer (in before they grew)
30/30
Grantees still filing
26/30
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$100kC$1.0MC$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetMENTAL HEALTH RECOVERY PARTNERS SOCIETY SOUTH VAN. ISLAND — C$5,300 over 4y, 0.6% of budgetLIVING EDGE COMMUNITY CHURCH — C$5,000 over 3y, 1.0% of budgetVictoria Rainbow Kitchen Society — C$4,500 over 3y, 0.6% of budgetSHELBOURNE COMMUNITY KITCHEN — C$4,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetJAMES BAY HEALTH & COMMUNITY SERVICES SOCIETY (JAMES BAY CO — C$4,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetCancer Drive Line Society — C$4,000 over 2y, 3.1% of budgetHARBOUR VIEW COMMUNITY CHURCH — C$3,200 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetSpinal Cord Injury Society of BC — C$2,500 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetESQUIMALT NEIGHBOURHOOD HOUSE SOCIETY — C$2,250 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetSPINAL CORD INJURY SOCIETY OF BC — C$2,050 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetOAKLANDS COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION — C$2,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetVICTORIA BRAIN INJURY SOCIETY — C$2,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetCRISIS INTERVENTION AND PUBLIC INFORMATION SOCIETY OF GREATE — C$2,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetWEAR2START SOCIETY — C$2,000 over 1y, 3.4% of budgetGREATER VICTORIA CITIZENS' COUNSELLING CENTRE — C$2,000 over 1y, 0.7% of budgetFriends of Music Society — C$2,000 over 1y, 1.7% of budgetQuadra Village Community Centre — C$1,712 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetPeers Victoria Resource Society — C$1,500 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetJames Bay New Horizons — C$1,500 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetCapital City Volunteers — C$1,500 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetContact Community Assistance Society — C$1,000 over 1y, 44% of budgetSTORY STUDIO WRITING SOCIETY — C$1,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetPANDORA ARTS COLLECTIVE SOCIETY — C$1,000 over 1y, 3.4% of budgetVICTORIA WOMEN'S TRANSITION HOUSE SOCIETY — C$1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSaanich Neighbourhood Place — C$1,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetOasis Society for Spiritual Health — C$600 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetFernwood Neighbourhood Resources Group — C$500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetVICTORIA HOSPICE SOCIETY — C$500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetALS Society of British Coilumbia — C$500 over 1y, 0.0% 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.

United Way Southern V…The Victoria Foundati…First West FoundationBc Government Employe…Sovereign Order of St…Vancity Community Fou…Rotary Club of Victor…The Western Communiti…University of VictoriaThe Hamber FoundationThe Sisters of Saint …Right To Food
United Way Southern Vancouver IslandBC24.1× affinity20 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: United Way Southern Vancouver Island · The Victoria Foundation · First West Foundation · Bc Government Employees Community Services Fund Trust · Sovereign Order of St. John Victoria Commandery Foundation · Vancity Community Foundation · Rotary Club of Victoria - Harbourside Foundation · The Western Communities Foundation · University of Victoria · The Hamber Foundation · The Sisters of Saint Ann · Right To Food

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 35 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 advancing education.

Source object 119253359:2024-12-31 · View the T3010 on the CRA register

Play a game based on Sara Spencer’s filings →