Cambridge Food Bank is a 4-star, financially transparent charity with an excellent A results reporting grade and a Good impact rating. It has $4.6m of reserve funds that can cover around three years and seven months of its annual program spending, which is outside Ci’s reasonable range. It also has 10% overhead spending. For every dollar donated, 90 cents are available to go to the cause.

Founded in 1985, Cambridge Food Bank (CFB) distributes food to individuals, non-profits, community centres, and churches in the Waterloo Regional Municipality. It also runs cooking classes, a fruit and vegetable garden, and a weekly affordable produce market. According to the charity, one in eight Waterloo households are struggling with food insecurity due to the rising cost of food, as shown by the 58,000 people in the region who used a food bank last year.

CFB's main program is food distribution. It spent $1.3m cash on its program operations and distributed $3.8m worth of food in the March 2024 fiscal year (F2024). The charity did not provide any further breakdown of its program spending at the time of this profile update.

Food distribution is CFB’s main program and involves its food distribution operations at its Community Pantry food bank. In F2024, the charity distributed 1,037,618 lb of food across 19,779 visits to 8,160 people and 14 organizations. CFB collected data on a sample of its clients based on their main source of income: 1,896 Canadian Pension Plan benefits, 1,055 Ontario Works, 794 Ontario Disability Support Program, 794 employment income, 126 Employment Insurance, 104 earn no income, and 78 Old Age Pension.

Other Programs include CFB’s Wellness Hub cooking classes, community Food Bank Garden, and popup Mobile Food Market. In F2024, the charity taught 597 people essential cooking skills and grew 10,305 lb of food at its community garden.

Cambridge Food Bank’s audited financial statements follow line-item costing as expense line items are not separated into program, administrative, and fundraising activities. This is not a best practice.

In F2024, CFB received $2.3m in cash donations (36% of total revenue) and $3.8m worth of donated food (58% of revenue). It also received $288k of government funding (4% of revenue).

Administrative costs are 5% of total revenue and fundraising costs are 5% of cash donations. Its 10% overhead spending means that for every dollar donated, 90 cents are available to go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range.

CFB spent $1.3m cash on program operations in F2024 (12% increase from $1.1m in F2023) and distributed $3.8m worth of food (13% increase from $3.3m in F2023).

At the end of F2024, CFB had $4.6m of reserve funds (cash and investments). Its reserves can cover 362% or around three years and seven months of its annual program spending. This is above Ci’s reasonable range.

Profile updated by Julian Dranitsaris on July 17, 2025. Comments and corrections may be forthcoming.

Questions? Contact jdranitsaris@charityintelligence.ca