How to evaluate a mental health charity

A starting point, not a checklist. The questions are the same at every size. Only the form of the answer changes.

Why access comes first

A large share of Canadian adults with a diagnosed mental health disorder say their needs are unmet or only partly met, and it is worse for young adults and for people who cannot afford to pay. A charity in this space exists because the system is not reaching people, so whether it reaches them is the first thing to ask.

What a mental health organization actually controls

1. How long from first contact to first real help. Not the first phone call. The first conversation with someone who can help. Every organization can track this, with a spreadsheet if nothing else.
2. Whether it checks how people are doing at the start and again later. The standard instruments are free and take minutes. The PHQ-9 for depression and the GAD-7 for anxiety are public domain. Ontario's community sector uses OCAN, a shared needs assessment. An organization does not have to use those. It has to use something and be able to say what.
3. Whether it asks people about their experience. CAMH uses a validated provincial tool. A small charity can use five questions on a card. What matters is that the answers change something.
4. Whether it knows the difference between people who finished and people who stopped coming. A planned last session and a no-show look the same in a session count. An organization that tracks them separately, and has someone reach out after a no-show, is paying attention. Knowing why is often out of reach. Noticing is not.

There is a fifth thing, and you can get at it without sounding like an auditor. Whether the counsellor someone starts with is still there six months later. Ask who someone sees at their first appointment, and how long that person has been here. It is the question you would ask of any firm, and it answers the one you cannot. Caseloads and burnout decide the answer, and much of it comes down to pay. A funder can have a significant positive impact on that.

Direct services

Counselling, therapy, community mental health, youth programs.

• How long from first contact to first session, and how does that compare with services like yours?
• What do you measure at intake, and when do you measure it again?
• For youth programs: is the service designed for young people, or is it an adult service with a younger waiting room?

Good: names a wait time, names an instrument, and knows the difference between a planned ending and a dropout. Weak: reports sessions delivered.

Crisis

Lines, text services, mobile teams.

• Within the resources you have, what share of contacts get answered, and how fast?
• When someone needs more than the call, what does the handoff look like?

Good: knows its answer rate and can describe a warm handoff. Weak: reports contact volume. Follow-up is often impossible by design, because anonymity is what makes people call, so do not hold that against a line. Ask what happens when someone agrees to more.

Peer support and recovery

Clubhouses, peer workers, programs run by people with lived experience.

• How are peer workers trained, supported and paid?
• What counts as a good outcome here, given that clinical measures may not fit?

Good: has thought about what success means and can describe it in participants' terms. The clinical frame does not apply well, and saying so is honesty, not evasion.

Awareness and advocacy

Campaigns, anti-stigma work, public education.

• What changed because of it, beyond how many people saw it?

Reach is not an outcome. Some campaigns can point to measured increases in help-seeking, and those are the ones worth funding on that basis. Most cannot, and a donor should know which kind they are looking at.

Scale, and what it changes

CAMH holds Accreditation Canada's highest standing and files an annual quality plan with the province. A counselling charity with four staff will never match that and does not need to. The questions above are the same at both sizes. CAMH answers with a validated instrument and a published dashboard. A small charity answers with a spreadsheet and a straight conversation. Both count. What does not count is an organization of any size that cannot say how long people wait, does not check how they are doing, and does not know who left.

What the questions cannot reach is what it is like to sit across from someone here on a bad day. Patience or a clipboard. Ask the organization to describe a first appointment. You will not be introduced to clients, and should not be, but many organizations have people with lived experience on staff or on the board. Ask them.

Once the program holds up, check the organization behind it.

Questions people also ask

What is the single best question to ask a mental health charity?

How long from first contact to first real help, and how do you know.

How many Canadians cannot get mental health care?

In 2024, 41% of adults with a diagnosed disorder reported unmet or partly met needs. For adults 18 to 34 it was 52%, and about one in three people with a diagnosis avoided care because of cost.

Does a small charity need a clinical outcome measure?

It needs to check how people are doing before and after. The PHQ-9 and GAD-7 are free, public domain, and take minutes. Size is not the barrier.

How does CAMH measure whether care is working?

Through Accreditation Canada, an annual Quality Improvement Plan filed with Ontario Health, and validated instruments including OPOC-MHA for patient experience. It is the reference for measurement at scale, not the standard a community charity must meet.