World Vision Canada chief operating officer Sumair Mirza in a community in Elgeyo Marakwet County, Kenya, talking to children and families in February, 2025.HANDOUT
When Sumair Mirza took on the role of World Vision Canada’s chief operating officer in 2018, it was with a mission to help the humanitarian organization buck the broader industry trend of declining charitable giving.
For more than 60 years, Mississauga-based World Vision Canada operated like many Canadian non-profits, focusing on storytelling to tap into donors’ beliefs, values and goodwill. But modern-day donors want to see the tangible impact of their contributions: Where did those dollars actually go?
World Vision Canada was seeking more business rigour – and Mr. Mirza was well-suited to the task given his background in finance, including a decade at GE Capital and nearly three years at Element Fleet Management, before creating his own digital consulting and software development agency, Convergent Labs.
His assignment was to transform World Vision Canada, the country’s largest private relief, advocacy and development agency, into a data-driven digital powerhouse – an approach largely unheard of in the charity sector at the time.
Proving non-profits can be innovative, too
Mr. Mirza’s first job was to recruit tech talent, which to him meant hitting the road to tell people in person about World Vision Canada’s goal to challenge the charity sector’s status quo and proving that non-profits can be as innovative and efficient as any tech start-up.
“I wanted to tell the story of rewiring the entire organization and hopefully inspire their hearts,” he said.
Data and digital technologies played a critical role in World Vision Canada’s evolution. Although the organization had decades’ worth of data, it was scattered across spreadsheets, random documents and different teams.
Mr. Mirza said the organization hadn’t figured out how to effectively compile and analyze the data and use it to communicate World Vision Canada’s on-the-ground impact to donors. It’s an important piece of the puzzle, given that 73 per cent of donors would be more likely to donate if they had access to the charity’s impact results from the previous year, according to Canada Helps.
The technology World Vision Canada needed didn’t exist, so Mr. Mirza’s team developed it. Following internal restructuring that included layoffs, Mr. Mirza hired top-tier digital talent to organize and analyze vast amounts of underutilized data into a cohesive view, which helped address donor concerns. The team built Real Impact 360, a centralized, back-end data management system that tracks and analyzes impact data using artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Mr. Mirza at a homestead in Elgeyo Marakwet County, Kenya, observing a climate smart agriculture project in February, 2025.Supplied
A new front-end system, World Vision 360, uses that data to communicate personalized reporting snapshots to donors. The AI-powered system helps manage more than 700 projects annually. World Vision Canada says it’s the first organization in Canada’s charity sector to build its own tech-enabled system.
“The charity sector has an allergic reaction to data,” said Kate Bahen, managing director at Charity Intelligence Canada, a group that assesses the finances and impact of Canadian charities.
“I’ve never seen anyone else do it quite at this level,” she said. “World Vision’s score was so high last year, it broke our back end.”
Charity Intelligence Canada evaluates charities based on their public reporting of activities, outputs and outcomes. The group’s scoring system only goes up to 200 points, but World Vision Canada surpassed that, earning 207 points, owing to top marks in categories such as results reporting, financial transparency and impact. The average score is 111 points – and years ago World Vision Canada had a score of 87. Quality data and robust reporting helped boost its ranking.
“It’s gone from being average to one of the best in Canada,” Ms. Bahen said.
Non-profits using AI to do more with less
Today, more non-profits are starting to experiment and launch pilots to determine how to harness the power of AI and data to achieve a greater impact, according to Jas Jaaj, global AI markets ecosystems and alliances leader and managing partner at Deloitte Canada.
“AI is an equalizer,” he said. “It’s empowering smaller organizations or non-profits that have limited resources to punch above their weight and do more with less.”
For example, Mr. Jaaj serves on the board of Lift Impact Partners, a Vancouver-based non-profit that supports social purpose organizations in their growth. The group is currently developing a platform powered by generative AI to help other non-profits streamline outreach, register clients and generate analyses to enhance decision-making.
“Over the last few years, they have been heavily looking into AI to have a bigger impact,” he said.
Many non-profits are following suit: According to a 2024 survey from tech firm Twilio, 58 per cent of non-profits reported using AI in their digital communications, compared to 47 per cent of business-to-consumer companies in the private sector. The survey also stated that 68 per cent of non-profits were using AI for data analysis.
Mr. Mirza at a school in Elgeyo Marakwet County, Kenya in February, 2025, planting a tree on behalf of Canadian supporters.Supplied
The digital revolution is paying off
World Vision Canada’s improved data and reporting have helped it land more donors and win grants.
The organization raised a record $503-million in revenue for its 2023 fiscal year, largely from donated cash and goods and grant funding. The number was down slightly to $468.3-million in fiscal 2024, which World Vision Canada attributes to declining foreign aid and Canadians’ cautious spending amid the rising cost of living and growing economic uncertainties.
Employee engagement has also improved significantly since the tech-driven restructuring. According to World Vision Canada, internal employee engagement scores jumped to 77 per cent based on its latest survey in March, up from 60 per cent in 2018.
“The sector needs to reform – we’ve got to continue to move forward and not just be what has always been,” Mr. Mirza said.