We are now officially a registered charity!

Humankind International began as an idea discussed among friends on how to improve the lives of children living in refugee camps through education.  

To help get Humankind International to move from just an idea to a reality Humankind International needed a bit of help.  So we began working with Accountable Development Works (ADW).  ADW is a Canadian international charity dedicated to assisting the poorest people and communities in the world, with a special focus on youth and children. ADW had the expertise and knowledge to help turn our idea into a reality.  Under the auspice of ADW, Humankind International was able to begin fundraising to build and open the first Humankind Academy.

After 10 years of working with ADW, the board of Humankind International decided, with ADW’s blessing, that it was time we struck out on our own. This meant applying for Humankind International to become its own registered charity in Canada. Having our own registered charitable status means that we will be able to issue our own charitable donation receipts and provide us with more independence to pursue grants and funding for Humankind Academy.   

The application process to become a registered charity can be a long and arduous one, after all not just any organization can call itself a registered charity! After making sure we had everything in order we submitted our application to the Canadian Revenue Agency in 2018 and we waited to hear back. We were elated to hear in late 2019 we received the word that CRA approved our application and issued us our own charitable registration number! 

In January 2020, we started the transition from ADW.  This meant setting up our own bank account, transitioning our monthly donors and learning more about our new obligation for reporting under CRA’s rules. (If you are a monthly donor who has not transitioned your donations from ADW to Humankind International but would still like to please contact our treasurer Lauren Reeves at laurenreeves@live.ca).  

We are very grateful to ADW for helping us get started and all the guidance they provided (and continue to provide) through the transition to being our own charity.  We are looking forward to this new challenge and the new opportunities being a registered charity will bring!