University of Ottawa
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 980654654
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2024–2024
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Ottawa, ON, Canada
- Phone
- 613-562-5700
- Rating
- 72
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- University or Technological Institute
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,124,805,721
- Expenses
- $1,066,980,410
- Assets
- $2,946,481,624
- Liabilities
- $1,244,511,112
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
34 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- JACQUES FRMONT (President and Vice-Chancellor)
- JACQUES BEAUVAIS (Provost and Vice-President, Ac)
Highest reported compensation
- BERNARD JASMIN (Dean): $377,347 total reported compensation
- STPHANE BRUTUS (Dean): $303,431 total reported compensation
- JACQUES FRMONT (President and Vice-Chancellor): $286,685 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The University of Ottawa is committed to helping students acquire the knowledge and skills they need to thrive as global citizens in a rapidly changing world.
What it reported doing in 2024
Facilities, construction and maintenance: Maintaining, renovating and constructing facilities necessary to support it's education, research and student-life missions.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 66% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 83% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and most voting board members are independent. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 83
- Transparency & Controls: 59
- Accountability: 91
- Sustainability: 63
- Growth: NotEnoughData
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 83.6%; rating input score 84
- Program expense ratio: 87.2%; rating input score 87
- Fundraising efficiency: $36.03 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 87.5%; rating input score 88; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Missing
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: 0 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 0
- Claims monitoring procedures: Limited
- Requires narrative reports: Limited
- Conducts field audits: Limited
- May suspend future funding: Limited
- Requires financial reports: Limited
- Conducts site visits: Limited
- Requires grant agreements: Limited
- May require repayment: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 93%; rating input score 93; 25th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Limited
- Related-party transparency: Yes; rating input score 100
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 5.1%; rating input score 57; 57th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.76; rating input score 73; 73rd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.42; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0.6%; rating input score 82; 82nd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: Limited
- Asset growth: Limited
Details
- What they do: 2 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 83.6% of revenue deployed · 87.2% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 32 of 32 board members independent · 7 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $930.5M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $377K · 34 people listed · 1 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 36 of 39 current checks pass · 3 findings to review
- Schedules: 9 filed schedules · includes foreign activity, grants, executive pay, and related organizations
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 31 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.
- High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight scored 0/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 9 not reported.
- Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 57/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 43/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Foreign grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Grant Readiness: Automatic revocation: this organization had its federal tax-exempt status automatically revoked.