Coalition makes second request for Canadian Nonprofit Data Lab 

Author Sharlene Gandhi

For the second year running, the Federal Nonprofit Data Coalition (FNDC) has recommended that the federal government dedicate funding to the creation of a Canadian Nonprofit Data lab. 

In its 2025 pre-budget submission, the FNDC also recommended that the federal government “establish a unit within Statistics Canada whose mandate is to collect, analyze and share data on the nonprofit sector.” Last year, the FNDC also recommended that Statistics Canada create an external advisory committee to carry out this task. 

Since its inception, the FNDC has been campaigning for more robust, regular, accessible, and up-to-date data about the sector. It celebrated that Statistics Canada released data about the non-profit sector through the Canadian Survey of Business Conditions in early 2024, the first survey of its kind in 20 years. 

However, the FNDC also wants to see this survey about the sector’s state repeated annually,, with the inclusion of grassroots and unincorporated organizations, as specifically laid out in the 2025 pre-budget submission. 

The FNDC is made up of several working groups, advocating for more data about: non-profit labour markets, sector diversity and equity, non-profit organizational data, the sector’s current conditions, and federal, provincial and territorial relations.

In the past year, the FNDC has played an active role in responding to the federal government’s initiatives to release more data about the sector. For instance, the group supported Bill S-279, Senator Ratna Omidvar’s initiative to help charities report on the demographic make-up of their boards through their income tax statements.

Despite its support for the Bill, the FNDC also highlighted that it may unfairly penalize charities, and that they should not be at risk of losing charitable status if they do not provide this data. 

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  • Sharlene Gandhi is the Future of Good editorial fellow on digital transformation.

    Sharlene has been reporting on responsible business, environmental sustainability and technology in the UK and Canada since 2018. She has worked with various organizations during this time, including the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University, AIGA Eye on Design, Social Enterprise UK and Nature is a Human Right. Sharlene moved to Toronto in early 2023 to join the Future of Good team, where she has been reporting at the intersections of technology, data and social purpose work. Her reporting has spanned several subject areas, including AI policy, cybersecurity, ethical data collection, and technology partnerships between the private, public and third sectors.

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