We have just released the Blumbergs' Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2013 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project.   The database covers about 83,000 of the 86,000 registered charities in Canada that had filed their T3010 and were processed into CRA’s Charity Listing database by December 2014. 

This article provides a snapshot of the registered charity sector based on the 2013 T3010 filings.  We have completed Blumbergs’ Snapshots of the Canadian Charity Sector for 2010, 2011, 2012 as well. Keep in mind that these statistics only relate to registered charities under the Income Tax Act (Canada) and not to the 80,000 -100,000 non-profits which are not registered charities and for which CRA is not permitted to release information.  I was quite pleased that the 2014 Federal Budget proposed reviewing the transparency requirements for non-profits and hopefully we will see greater transparency on the non-profits in the future. 

The Canadian charity sector is a vital part of Canadian society and economy with revenue of over $237 billion and expenditures of about $225 billion.

Please review the caveats at the end about the reliability and usage of T3010 information.

Some of the highlights of the Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2013 include:

•           83,466 registered charities filed their T3010 in Canada out of approximately 86,000 charities

•           $237 billion in total revenue for Canadian charities and total expenditures of $225 billion.

•          Government revenue totaled $160 Billion including from the federal government ($6.9 Billion), provincial governments ($145 Billion) and municipal/regional governments ($8.5 billion)

•           75,072 identified themselves as active and 6,698 as inactive

•           29,479 made gifts to other charities or qualified donees during their 2013 fiscal year

•           5400 conducted activities outside of Canada and spent over $3 billion outside of Canada

•           218 Canadian charities received funds from CIDA/DFATD

•          2,880 identified having contractual relationships with foreign intermediaries, 1470  charities identified that employees conducted activities outside of Canada and 2964 had volunteers conducting foreign activities.

•          $1.35 Billion was received by Canadian charities from outside of Canada

•           481 identified carrying on political activities

•          although $171 million is identified in political spending, if one digs deeper into this most frequently incorrectly answered question on the T3010 then number is probably about $26,298,000 (we have revised the number in the snapshot)

•          the most common method of political activity is staff using the website or social media. (see the new schedule 7 with information on political activities)

•          38,992 identified having employment expenses while 43,664 did not have any employment expenses

•          although the raw numbers suggest 1,856,760 full time employees and 2,194,151 part-time employees we have scrutinized and revised the number in  the snapshot to 1,375,120 full time employees and 1,269,825 part-time employees

•           $129 Billion was spent by Canadian charities on salaries and other compensation expenditures

•           $14.6 Billion in official donation receipts were issued by Canadian registered charities