Some interesting Canadian registered charity statistics from the CRA in 2010

Cathy Hawara, Acting Director General of the Charities Directorate, delivered a presentation on April 30, 2010 and during that presentation she provided some interesting statistics on registered charities.  I always knew that the Federal and Provincial governments are the largest source of revenue for the sector but the thing that jumped out at me as staggering was that “the proportion of revenue coming from government has increased from 54% to 67% of the sector’s total between 2000 and 2008.”:

Some interesting results when we looked to the T3010 data for revenue:
• In 2008, registered charities reported $182 Billion in total revenue; an increase of more than 80% or $83 Billion over the $99 Billion reported in 2000.
• Government remains largest funder for the sector and the proportion of revenue coming from government has increased from 54% to 67% of the sector’s total between 2000 and 2008:
o Hospitals, schools, colleges and universities still receive more funding than all other charities ($74Billion) and it has increased by 130% over the past ten years
o Government funding for the remaining charitable sector is increasing overall, at $48 Billion in 2008, is up almost 120% compared to 2000.

• Looking at the profile of registered charities at a high level over the past decade, the sector has remained stable in a few areas:

• While the overall number of registered charities has grown by about 6%, the geographic distribution is relatively constant with close to 60% of registered charities located in three provinces: Ontario (35%), Quebec (19%) and BC (14%).

• Also, we see a very slight decline in the proportion of the sector that is religious charities, down 1.6% from 2000 to 2009 while welfare charities are up the most in terms of proportion, by 2.6%, the greatest increase of all types of charities between 2000 and 2008.