United Way Maritimes 2024-25

2024-25 Fiscal Year at a Glance

A group of people, several wearing United Way shirts, standing and crouching in a garden

April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025 was the first fiscal year where United Way Maritimes is reporting as one single organization. It’s been a year of significant transformation and strategic accomplishment while continuing to raise significant funding for critical community programs as well as new and expanded United Way-delivered programs.

Following the unification of seven United Ways into a single regional entity, it was very important to consolidate accounting policies, align fiscal year-ends, implement a single accounting system, and standardize operational processes. Successful completion of these large-scale internal changes has allowed us to begin to achieve the efficiencies and organizational improvements we knew would be possible when we came together.

Despite the scale of these internal initiatives, we closed the year with stronger financial health overall as well as revenue growth, allowing us to invest as much or more in each of the Maritime communities we serve.

We invested $9.4 million to respond to growing needs in those communities.

There are four ways that donor dollars impacted local lives and addressed the root causes of poverty and the priority needs of people in the communities we serve.

Highlights

A few specific highlights include:

  • $5.0 million to fund 165 life-changing social programs serving more than 122,000 people in all of the communities we serve across the Maritimes, plus $498,000 in donations to additional charities chosen by our donors.
  • $2.5 million to manage and deliver critical community initiatives such as 211 PEI and Building Safer Communities in New Brunswick, as well as for United Way-delivered project design and delivery, like our new affordable housing projects in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
  • $141,000 in disaster relief funding and some prevention programming, much of which was spent to rebuild physical structures, as well as a sense of safety and hope, lost to wildfires and flooding experienced in a few of the communities we serve.
  • $761,000 to continue our programming to support lasting systemic change and help address some of the biggest issues we’re facing through a stronger, more empowered non-profit sector. A significant portion of this investment helped to graduate 18 participants from the East Coast Public Policy Training Institute in Nova Scotia and 13 from the Executive Director Academy in PEI.

Investing In Our Communities

Total revenue for United Way Maritimes (once non-recurring revenue is removed) grew by 10% to $12.2 million in fiscal 2024-25. This is a result of the organization’s continued efforts to diversify its sources of revenue, including those needed to scale up existing United Way-delivered programs and new streams such as rent from housing units.

Fundraising revenue grew by 2% to $9.9 million dollars when compared to fiscal 2023-24. Total fundraising expenses for 2024-25 were $2.9 million, down from $3.6 million year-over-year. This was realized through unified event logistics, highly targeted marketing and fundraising efforts, and operational synergies.

This means, in fiscal 2024-25, 77 cents from every dollar raised was invested in community programs and supports. The remaining 23 cents was allocated to operations, making sure our impact, local expertise, donor experience, and financial management continue at a high rate of excellence. Prior to unification, the average administrative cost across our offices was between 18%-23%. This was expected due of the need to combine financial, payroll, benefits, accounting, banking and other enterprise-wide systems.

While still well below the Canadian Revenue Agency’s acceptable standard of 35%, we expect this will level out in the years ahead as costs associated with unification decrease. We feel this reflects the level of effectiveness and excellence that United Way donors and supporters trust and expect.

Cash-based accounting

During 2023-24, as part of aligning our financial policies, we have moved all geographic locations to cash-based accounting. This means we only count revenue that was received (rather than pledged or anticipated) by the end of the fiscal year. Cash-based accounting is a national best practice for charities and non-profit organizations because it helps mitigate financial risks and improve the stability of the organization.

Our consolidated statement of financial position also shows restricted cash of $9.5 million. This was financial support provided to United Way Maritimes in fiscal 2024-25 for housing communities, which will be amortized over the useful lives of the related assets.

$19.7 million in total assets, as of March 31, 2025, reflects that we moved previous government-directed funding into long-term community investments for affordable housing projects, including the acquisition of the Sackville Tiny Home Community. Current assets of $5.9 million compared to $4.9 million in current liabilities demonstrate our healthy financial resources and effective cash flow management

We ended the year with an excess in revenues of $130,000, due primarily to high performance of our long-term investments. We have a healthy cash balance and are confident we can meet our fiscal commitments for the 2025/26 year.

United Way Maritimes’ financial statements have gone through an independent audit and notably received an unqualified opinion. An unqualified opinion is not considered common for donor-funded organizations and is even more notable given the need to align seven separate sets of fiscal policies and systems into one.

Fiscal responsibility and accountability remain at the forefront of our objectives as a trusted non-profit organization focused on serving its communities.

Downloads:

2024-25 Audited Financial Statement
United Way Maritimes - 2025 Financial Statements