2022 Annual Report: Shaping Our Future

Introduction

A MESSAGE FROM THE CEO AND CO-CHAIRS OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

This past year has been an exciting journey for us at Crohn’s and Colitis Canada. Together with our community, we embarked on a new Impact Strategy to guide us in better achieving and reporting on our Promise – we aspire to cure Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and improve the quality of life of everyone affected by these diseases.

Our Impact Strategy centres around four key mission objectives that outline what we’re going to do. These areas of focus have been important to us for years, but within this new strategy are seen through the lens of impact. We will accelerate the momentum of research, addressing key factors that speed up the timeline from discovery to impact. We will reach further, broadening the diversity of people reached through our patient programs, and making more effort to reach them in the early stages of diagnosis. We will drive system change through our advocacy efforts. And we will boost awareness and understanding of Crohn’s and colitis by telling the real story of living with these diseases.

How we achieve these mission objectives is also a focus of our impact strategy. We are scaling our fundraising enterprise by investing in high-return revenue sources and embracing a donor-centric approach. We are adopting a sustainable digital-first approach in everything we do so that we can collect and utilize data as well as give people more timely access to information. We are working to modernize how we engage employees and volunteers and create opportunities for skills-based, episodic volunteering; and we are deepening our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in all aspects of our work.

We know we can’t do this alone – we are excited about what’s ahead and the critical role we have as a contributor, a connector, and as a collaborator with others in this large inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) ecosystem. We are proud to say, as you will see in this report, that we have already started to make progress against many of these goals, and we have drafted an evaluation framework with key metrics that we will use to report publicly about that progress. The success of this plan will be based on how it truly impacts the lives of people living with and affected by Crohn’s or colitis.

We would like to thank all of our community members for their dedication, time and contributions to this plan and to our work going forward. And we’d like to thank our volunteers and donors who make our work possible. Together, we are shaping a better future for those affected by Crohn’s or colitis.

View our 2022 research and financial highlights >