Canadian Charity Statistics

Charities Program Update from Cathy Hawara, Director General of the Charities Directorate

The Charities Directorate is launching a new Charities Program Update bulletin.  It will be sent to the 23,000 subscribers to the Charities Directorate email list. Lots of interesting information and statistics are contained in the Update.

Statistics Canada has released further information on Canadian donors for 2011

Statistics Canada has recently released donor information for 2011.  Every year Stats Can puts out this information and people write about it.  Stats Can notes:  “Charitable donations reported by taxfilers increased 2.6% from 2010 to just under $8.5 billion in 2011. At the same time, the number of people reporting charitable donations on their 2011 income tax return decreased by 0.6% to 5.7 million.”  Looking at what tax filers claim as the basis for charitable donations is problematic on a number of levels and the “Note to Reader” is completely inadequate and getting worse.  You have about $300 million dollars per year are now claimed as part of abusive gifting tax schemes in which almost none goes to charity.  Furthermore,  Canadians often give to charity in circumstances in which receipts are not issued.  As well, not all Canadians who receive receipts use them on their tax filing.  Canadian charities in 2011 issued approximately $13 billion in receipts and only $8.5 billion were claimed on tax returns.

Blumbergs Canadian Charity Sector Snapshot 2011 -understanding the charity sector through the T3010

We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2011 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project.  The database covers 82,000 of the 86,000 registered charities in Canada that had filed their T3010 and were processed into CRA’s Charity Listing database by November 2012.  This article provides a snapshot of the registered charity sector based on the 2011 T3010 filings. 

CRA publishes new web page on “How to get information about a charity”

The Charities Directorate has just published a new page which sets out how members of the public can obtain information about registered charities. 

Chronicle of Philanthropy article “Congress Urged to Require Charities to File 990s Online”

Here is an important article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy outlining an initiative to try and have charities electronically file their annual returns in the US and have this information more easily accessible online at no charge.  Although Canadian charities cannot file their T3010s online they are put online by CRA and available in electronic format for anyone to search at no charge. 

Blumbergs Financial Snapshot of the Canadian charity sector 2011

The T3010 is a great resource on the Canadian charity sector.  We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2011 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project.  The database covers 82,848 of the approximately 86,000 registered charities that had filed their T3010 and were processed into the CRA’s Charity Listing database by November 2012. Canadian registered charities are currently required to disclose on the T3010 in Section D or Schedule 6 certain financial information on assets and liabilities, as well as revenue and expenditures.  We thought it would be interesting to look at the total financial figures for all the Canadian registered charities.  They are presented as both excel format and also inserted into the T3010 itself at the end.  The Canadian charity sector is a vital part of Canadian society and economy.  As you can see from this article it has revenue of over $212 billion and expenditures of over $205 billion.

How many registered charities are there in Canada?

I took a look at the CRA website and here are the numbers of Canadian registered charities.

Canadian Private Foundations – Who had the largest total expenditures

We recently reviewed the private foundations contained on the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return for 2011. In this case we looked at the approximately 500 private foundations on the database who had the greatest total expenditures according to their T3010 filings.  There are some interesting surprises on the list. 

Which Canadian Charities Spent Money on “political activities” and how much did they spend

We recently reviewed the T3010 information for 2011.  The database was prepared by the Charities Directorate of CRA in September 2012 and covers about 81,000 charities (94% of Canadian registered charities) and their 2011 T3010 returns. 
Canadian registered charities are currently required to disclose on the T3010 “Did the Charity Carry on Political Activities During the Fiscal Year?” (line 2400) and “Enter the Total Amount spent by the Charity on these activities” (line 5000)
Please review my caveats at the end about the reliability and usage of T3010 information.

Blumbergs’ Canadian Charity Law Institute - corporate law, CRA compliance and more

On November 28, 2012 we will be having the Blumbergs’ Canadian Charity Law Institute in Toronto. It will be a full day of practical legal and ethical compliance information geared toward charities, professional advisors and those interested in regulatory issues affecting charities.
Delighted to have 120 registrants so far for the program. 

Some of the highlights include:

•head of the Determinations Division of the Charities Directorate of CRA, which determines whether charitable applications will be accepted, will talk about issues with applying for charitable status;
•lawyers from the Ontario government will discuss progress and issues with the new Ontario Not-for-profit Corporations Act (ONCA);
•a representative of Corporations Canada of Industry Canada will provide a short primer on the Canada Not-for-profit Corporation Act (CNCA) and transition requirements as well as deficiencies with the applications that Industry Canada is receiving and common questions asked by practitioners. 
•a top corporate lawyer will focus on lessons learned, issues and challenges with the CNCA and what to expect with the ONCA;
•hearing directly from CRA about changes relating to political activities of Canadian charities, other policy developments and upcoming guidances;
•discussion of major challenges with receipting and unacceptable donor restrictions;
•recent changes in transparency and availability of charity information from a transparency expert;
•update from Mark Blumberg on the charity sector, recent developments and the ongoing political processes in Ottawa affecting charities and donors;
•and much more.

Here is a link to the information and registration page: http://charitylaw.eventbrite.com

Some questions to add to the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return

One day CRA will look at revising the T3010.  Here are some suggestions for additional questions that they may want to ask.

“From Stories to Evidence: How Mining Data Can Promote Innovation in the Nonprofit Sector”

Here is a great article entitled “From Stories to Evidence: How Mining Data Can Promote Innovation in the Nonprofit Sector”. Michael Lenczner and Susan Phillips discuss the importance of the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return data and its uses in encouraging innovation in the non-profit sector.  The T3010 information is a real gem and hopefully more people will use this very important resource.

Which Canadian charities have the largest amount of long term investments?

According to the T3010 for 2010 the total long term investments of Canadian registered charities (captured in line 4140) is $14.7 Billion.  This is only long term investments and does not include cash, inventory, land and buildings etc.  Keep in mind the many caveats with T3010 information including that it is provided by the charity and not verified by CRA.

Interesting Stats on Foreign Activities by Canadian Charities

I took a look at the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return statistics on foreign activities by Canadian charities for 2010.  The total 2010 amount identified by all charities including gifts-in-kind (GIK) is almost $2.7 billion.  299 charities spent more than $1 million outside of Canada.  5355 charities identified spending some amount outside of Canada.  Some of the top GIK numbers are scams and will reduce the total.  On the other hand the total will rise as a result of funds spents outside of Canada but as gifts to qualified donees which are not counted in these numbers. 

CRA Category Codes to distinguish charities in the T3010 data

Here is a list of the CRA Category Codes used to classify Canadian charities.  The coding is in many cases of little use.  Probably the most useful is the different religious groups.

Some interesting reports from Statistics Canada on giving and volunteering

Statscan has put out some reports recently on charitable giving and volunteering as well as more specific reports on giving by immigrants and employer support of volunteering,

Latest Charities Directorate statistics on size of the Canadian charity sector

The Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency occasionally releases information on the size of the charity sector using the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return.  Here are two interesting charts which looks at 2009 and 2010 charity filings in terms of charity revenue and assets.  Revenue of the Canadian registered charities has jumped from $192 to $207 billion from 2009 to 2010.  Assets have risen from $240 billion to $266 billion.  It is interesting to the see the breakdown by revenue.  About 10,000 of the 86,000 charities account for a very large portion of both revenue and assets. 

Mark Blumberg’s submission to the Standing Committee on Finance on transparency

I presented to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance today along with 5 other witnesses.  There was a lively discussion of transparency, cross border philanthropy, tax incentives and preventing abuse of registered charities.

Canadian Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) review of charitable tax incentives

The Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) is holding hearings on tax incentives for charitable donations.

StatsCan releases data on volunteering “Caring Canadians, Involved Canadians”

Statistics Canada has released a report entitled “Caring Canadians, Involved Canadians”  based on the 2010 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating (CSGVP).  Statscan will be releasing further reports on the data. 

CharityFocus.ca adds Director search feature

CharityFocus.ca is a new tool created by Imagine Canada to allow searches of Canadian registered charities.  You can now also search by directors. 

Largest Gifts from Canadian Charities to other Qualified Donees - 2010

Here is a list of the Largest Gifts from Canadian Charities to other Qualified Donees - 2010.  You might find this interesting.

Blumbergs’ Canadian Charity Law List - January 2012

Here is the Blumbergs’ Canadian Charity Law List - January 2012

StatsCan stats on charity sector interesting - but notes even more interesting

StatsCan recently published some statistics on charitable giving.  They noted “Canadian taxfilers reported making charitable donations of just under $8.3 billion in 2010, up 6.5% from 2009. At the same time, the number of donors increased 2.2% to just over 5.7 million. Data are based on income tax returns filed for 2010.”  That is a bit of a good news story and shows that many Canadians who have jobs feels quite lucky and are generally digging into their pockets more.  What is interesting and not discussed by StatsCan is that Canadian charities according to their T3010 filings issued about $13 billion in donation receipts.  Why then almost a 5 billion dollars difference between the T3010 filings and the personal income tax returns?  Many Canadians gave under $200 and did not claim any amount on their return. Some donations came from corporations and not personal taxfilers.  Also maybe some who gave over $200 did not keep their receipts or did not think it was important to file them. Perhaps the tax benefits of donating to registered charities are less important to some than to others.

Canadian Charities and Free Transparency Tools - look before you donate your time or money

There are a couple of interesting websites which allow much easier searching of information from the T3010 databases.  One is CharityFocus.ca (discussed at http://www.globalphilanthropy.ca/index.php/blog/comments/charity_focus_from_imagine_canada_-_a_helpful_tool_to_analyze_canadian_char/ ).  Another interesting website is http://www.opencharity.ca  Opencharity.ca allows for visitors to search not only by charity name but also directors name. 

Charity Focus from Imagine Canada - a helpful tool to analyze Canadian charities

Imagine Canada will be officially launching its Charity Focus website soon.  You can review the website at http://www.charityfocus.ca/

So how much do Canadian charities receive from foreign sources according to the T3010 Returns?

There has been a little political firestorm last week over US foundations funding of certain Canadian environmental charities.  So how much revenue actually comes to Canada from foreign countries including the US?  The answer seems to be about $831 million.  That is from Line 4575 “Total revenue received from all sources outside Canada”.  If you are interested in who got what then read on.

CRA’s Program areas and field codes for the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return + TF725 BIS

Here are the CRA’s “Program areas and field codes” for the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return and the TF725 Registered Charity Basic Information Sheet (BIS).  These codes are needed when you are completing the T3010.  As well they are useful if you are searching T3010 data to fine tune the areas of charitable work.

Blumbergs Canadian Charity Law List - October 2011

Here is a copy of the Blumbergs Canadian Charity Law List - October 2011.  To sign up and receive monthly updates go to http://www.canadiancharitylaw.ca/index.php/pages/subscribe/

Statistics on the Canadian charitable sector from the Canada Revenue Agency, Charities Directorate

The Charities Directorate has recently released information obtained from the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return.  It paints an interesting portrait of the charitable sector.