L’Arche Canada is a 3-star charity. It is mostly financially transparent and has a B results reporting grade, which is average. Its overhead spending is 36%, which is not within Ci’s reasonable range. Excluding donor endowments, its reserve funds can cover program costs for nearly seven months, which is within Ci's reasonable range.

Founded in 1997, L’Arche Canada aims to help individuals with intellectual disabilities reach their full potential. According to Disability Without Poverty, in 2021, 16.5% of people with disabilities lived in poverty, representing more than 1.5 million people. According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), in Canada, an estimated 13,200 adults with developmental disabilities live with parents or other family members because of a lack of resources or community supports.  

The charity spent a total of $3.4m on its programs in the fiscal year ending March 2024 (F2024). It funds three main areas: Support to Communities, Mission and Public Engagement, and International Development.

L’Arche has 30 communities in Canada across nine provinces.

Support to Communities got 53% ($1.8m) of program spending in F2024. L'Arche funds initiatives that give disabled individuals opportunities to develop their leadership skills and understand the disability tax credit in Canada. It also funds accessible homes for people with disabilities to live in. In F2024, it funded 122 homes and apartments, providing inclusive housing for over 500 people with intellectual disabilities.

International Development got 26% ($882k) of program spending in F2024. The charity supports programs in L’Arche communities outside of Canada. In F2024, it had 20 national and international partners. In early 2025, the charity completed L’Arche’s Together With and Without Intellectual Disabilities in Self-Advocacy (TwidSA) project. This was a three-year initiative that trained 24 youths from Egypt, Palestine, Croatia, and France to be advocates for inclusion.

Mission and Public Engagement got 22% ($740k) of program spending in F2024. The charity engages in public advocacy with the government and other organizations for disabled individuals. In January 2024, the eight L’Arche communities in Quebec made front-page news in La Presse, a Canadian newspaper. This led to two months of media coverage in newspapers, on TV and radio, and online. L’Arche Canada also engaged in an advocacy campaign in Ottawa. This campaign focused on including people with intellectual disabilities in Canada’s National Housing Strategy.

Charity Intelligence consolidated the financial statements for L’Arche Canada Foundation and L’Arche Canada for F2024 and F2023. For F2022, Ci used statements that were already consolidated by the charity.

L'Arche is mostly financially transparent. This means its most recent financial statements for the operating charity and the Foundation are publicly posted on its website but not for any prior years.

Although L'Arche’s audited financial statements provide some disclosure on how much it spent on programming and administrative costs, the Foundation did not properly separate out fundraising expenses on its statement of operations. This means L'Arche follows line-item costing, which is not a best practice. Given this, Ci referred to its T3010 filing with the CRA Charities Directorate to report these costs.

L'Arche received $1.9m in donations in F2024, which is 45% of total revenue. It earned $428k in investment income, which is 11% of revenue. The charity spent $3.4m on its programs in F2024, which is 84% of revenue. L'Arche recorded a deficit of $333k in F2024.

L'Arche spent $336k on fundraising costs, which is 18% of donations. It spent $650k on administrative costs, which is 18% of revenue. L'Arche has total overhead spending of 36%. For every dollar donated to L'Arche, 64 cents are available to go to the cause. This is not within Ci’s reasonable range of 65-95.

L'Arche has $3.8m in reserve funds (cash and investments). It has donor endowments of $1.9m. Excluding donor-endowed funds, its reserve funds can cover 57% or nearly seven months of its annual program costs, which is within Ci's reasonable range. 

In F2024, L'Arche reported that it did pay external fundraisers but did not report the amount paid nor raised by the fundraisers.

The charity does not report the Foundation’s employee compensation for F2024 on its T3010, but it does report employee compensation for the operating charity. Thus, the employee compensation information is only reflective of the operating charity.

This report is an update that has been sent to L’Arche Canada for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 11^th, 2025, by Leah DeFrancesco.