New group looks to philanthropic money to fund Canadian Nonprofit Data Lab
Why It Matters
Compared to the for-profit sector, the non-profit sector remains under-researched in Canada. There are several instances of non-profits being included in national business surveys, and specific sector-related data then not being published.
This is the second of a two-part series on data about the Canadian non-profit sector. Read the first part here.
Following continued advocacy by the Federal Nonprofit Data Coalition (FNDC), a new group is now actively fundraising for a Canadian Nonprofit Data Lab.
For the last couple of years, the FNDC, which is housed within Imagine Canada, has been making pre-budget submissions to the federal government. The coalition has repeatedly requested that a portion of the budget be dedicated to increasing StatsCan’s capacity to collect data about the Canadian non-profit sector.
This new coalition – made up of Imagine Canada, DARO and Carleton University – is now turning to philanthropy to fund the proposed data lab.
While the funders cannot yet be disclosed, the group has more confidence that they will receive funding from philanthropic sources rather than government sources, said Cathy Barr, senior advisor of research and data at Imagine Canada, and former vice president of research and strategic relationships.
“Relatively few foundations fund infrastructure, which is a significant problem in and of itself,” Barr said.
A new model of nonprofit data collection
The Canadian Nonprofit Data Lab (CaNDL) seeks to bridge gaps between the sector, government and academia.
All three of the founding organizations have historically been involved in collecting data about the Canadian non-profit sector: Imagine Canada hosts the FNDC, and recently published research about the non-profit sector workforce; Carleton University houses the Charity Insights Canada Project and a dedicated Masters in Philanthropy and Non-profit Leadership; and DARO is a Montreal-based social enterprise that recently analyzed and published data about the federal government’s Community Services Recovery Fund (CSRF), a COVID-recovery granting pool for the non-profit sector.
DARO’s analysis of the CSRF dataset compared the total number of applications with the proportion that was successfully funded and the total amount of funding requested by the whole sector with the $400 million budgeted for it.
They found that the sector requested nearly $1.4 billion in funding, “underscoring the depth of financial strain on non-profits as they work to modernize operations, retain staff, and adapt services to changing community needs.”
With 15,000 non-profits applying to the CSRF, the dataset contains a significant sample of non-profits nationwide, said Ben McNamee, DARO’s director of strategic partnerships. The information can “tell us something about the sector that we haven’t been able to explore before,” he added.
“What can we start to ask it [the dataset] about the sector itself? Can we ask questions about the sector rather than the program [CSRF]?” he asked.
Much of the information about the state of the sector overall comes from tax return data, added Jesse Bourns, chief impact officer at DARO.
“As we look ahead, this data serves as a call to action,” DARO wrote in their report.
“At the time of writing in March 2025, we are entering a broader period of economic uncertainty, shaped by factors like rising inflation, tariffs, and global trade tensions.
“In this context, building the sector’s resilience is more urgent than ever.”
A history of scattered data
In the most recent round of pre-budget submissions, the FNDC made several suggestions for how the federal government could increase its collection of non-profit sector data through StatsCan.
The recommendations included providing Statistics Canada with a specific mandate to collect data on the non-profit sector; creating an external advisory committee made up of sector representatives to improve data collection; a follow-up to the 2003 National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations, to be repeated every three years; and the creation of a Nonprofit Sector Data Lab.
In total, the FNDC requested $8 million in 2024/25 and more than $3 million in ongoing funding for maintenance and support in this pre-budget submission.
CaNDL would be modelled on the existing Business Data Lab, which is run by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and tracks real-time data for the country’s for-profit sectors.
Sector researchers have cited numerous problems with the way non-profit data is currently collected, including a lack of dedicated surveys, little access to the information that has been collected, and an inability to mobilize and act upon that information.
In a report on the “non-profit data deficit”, DARO said there is a “lack of commitment to maintaining long-term data sources.”
The Satellite Accounts of Non-profit Institutions and Volunteering contained annual data, released between 2003 and 2010, but was “subsequently discontinued as an annual survey, with only periodic updates between 2019 and 2024.”
In early 2024, the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions “dedicated a special module to non-profit organizations, including community, business and government non-profit organizations,” finding that the sector contributed to over $216 billion in economic activity while at the same time struggling to meet increased demand for their services.
According to DARO, the General Social Survey—Giving, Volunteering, and Participating (GSS-GVP) has been conducted every few years since 1997. Survey data from 2023 were released in June 2025, showing an overall decline in volunteerism and donations.
In some cases, Barr said, non-profits have been included by default in Statistics Canada surveys.
Still, when the analysis and outcomes are published, there isn’t a specific breakdown about the sector.
One example is the 2021 Canadian Survey of Cyber Security and Cybercrime: although non-profits with over ten staff have been included in this research since its inception, the information has not been publicly available.
In this case, Barr and Jason Shim, chief digital officer at the Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience, had to conduct additional analysis once the data was acquired to understand specific cybersecurity challenges for non-profits.
According to McNamee, different government ministries are already collecting much data about the sector, primarily through administering grants to non-profits. The CSRF dataset is an example of this data type about an extensive, national funding program that was also sub-sector agnostic.
While it’s not always apparent from the outside, Statistics Canada projects also often work in a disconnected way, Barr added.
“One group of people working on one thing is unaware of another group of people working on another thing.”
Crucial data about the Canadian non-profit sector remains missing, the DARO team writes: “There is currently no publicly available list of all non-profit organizations in Canada, and no comprehensive source of information about how many organizations there are, where they are located, who they serve, or what they do.”
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