At Horizons of Friendship we take pride in our professional approach and in our accountability to donors.
Accountability and transparency
We are keenly aware of the trust supporters place in our organization when you make a donation. We take this trust very seriously and strive to keep our costs as low as possible so that your donations will have the maximum impact among our Southern partners. We maintain thorough international accountability standards in both our Canadian and Mesoamerican programs, with ongoing review of our partner’s financial systems. Selection of partners involves careful screening of their administrative and financial practices, as well as excellent project implementation experience. Horizons performs internal audits on partner’s finances and requests an external annual audit. Our entire organization undergoes an annual audit by an independent firm and is also periodically audited by CIDA. We work alongside our partners to strengthen their administrative and financial systems, providing workshops and ongoing technical support in accounting and financial management.
Local contribution from Southern partners and communities
Each Mesoamerican project may also receive contributions from the local community consisting of volunteer time. This may be put into project activities such as training or providing services to other community members, as well as unskilled labour in the construction of the agriculture and health infrastructure. It may also take the form of in-kind donations of local construction material such as gravel and sand. Each of our Southern partners supplements Horizons’ contribution with their own fundraising efforts and a diversified source of revenue.
In-kind contributions
In Canada, Horizons has successfully increased the engagement of the local public and businesses to leverage in-kind donations and volunteer labour. Their value to Horizons of Friendship has quadrupled over the past ten years and stood at $ 396,830 for the 2006/2007 fiscal year*. Annual value of goods and services is $49,550.
*Annual volunteer hours, equivalent to 20,982 hours with a value of $364,660 at the rate of $17.38/hour, as established and used for valuing volunteer hours in Ontario by Canadian Heritage and Statistics Canada.
