The last national survey of Canadian non-profits and voluntary organizations was 20 years ago. Why has this information been missing?

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TORONTO / TREATY 13 – For the non-profit sector, getting sidelined or ignored by federal-level policies has been an ongoing challenge.

“Assistance brought in following the 2008 economic downturn did not include non-profits,” says Cathy Barr, vice president of research and strategic relationships at Imagine Canada. So, in 2020, when the government announced the wage subsidy during COVID-19, Barr and others in the sector campaigned relentlessly to ensure that the government had factored non-profits in. “If charities and non-profits didn’t get the wage subsidy, a lot of people were going to be out of work.”

Statistics Canada’s data have similarly sidelined the sector. The last National Survey of Non-profit and Voluntary Organizations (NSNVO) was conducted in 2003. The survey was designed to be undertaken regularly but was only carried out once. This data is now 20 years old.  

“The government collects extensive, incredibly detailed information about industries such as agriculture, mining, automotive and retail,” Barr continues. “The non-profit sector is an important part of the Canadian economy and an important provider of jobs, but in Canada, we don’t even know how many non-profit organizations exist. We know how many charities there are because they are registered with the Canadian Revenue Agency, but there are just as many non-profits that aren’t registered. We don’t know where they are located or what they do.” 

In response, a group of non-profit organizations and networks have submitted a proposal to the federal government’s pre-budget consultations, specifically to ask that the federal government provide Statistics Canada with a mandate and funding to collect timely information about the non-profit sector. This group – called the Federal Nonprofit Data Coalition (FNDC) – includes Imagine Canada, Philanthropic Foundations Canada, Volunteer Canada and YWCA Toronto, among others. 

Neemarie Alam, data strategy manager at the Ontario Nonprofit Network, is one of the coordinating members of the Coalition alongside Barr. “The impact of the twenty-year data gap is that even though non-profits have had major impacts on people’s lives, that story has gone by the wayside,” Alam says. “It’s hard to push for investment or public policy change when you’re invisible.”

Non-profits have previously contributed to the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions (CSBC), a quarterly survey which covers revenues, costs, staffing and investments that a business is making, among other topics. These are also relevant to the non-profit sector, but certain sector-specific information is missing. For instance, there were no questions about volunteering or donation activities since the CSBC also covers profit-making and private businesses. However, the FNDC requested for this sector-specific information to be covered in the survey. As a result, questions about volunteering were added into the survey in the fourth quarter of 2022, and questions about donations were added recently, in the fourth quarter of 2023.

“If we don’t have enough recent data, we’re at a loss to do anything,” Barr says. “What parts of the sector are growing or shrinking? How is money flowing? How much is going to Black-led or Indigenous-led organizations?”

What sorts of data is the sector asking for?

“Since the previous NSNVO, there has been an increase in non-profits interested in data and staff dedicated to data collection and use,” Alam says. “Over time, funding requirements have incorporated more data collection. One of the things that the pandemic did was socialize the general public around data and statistics.” 

The FNDC’s proposal contains four recommendations for the federal government and, by extension, Statistics Canada. One of the recommendations is a follow-up to the 2003 NSNVO and a commitment to repeat the survey every three years. The Coalition suggests providing funding of $5 million for 2024-2025 for this and an additional $1.5 million as an ongoing expense. The proposal also states that the survey should include grassroots and unincorporated organizations. 

Another recommendation is the creation of a Nonprofit Sector Data Lab, which will cost an estimated $2 million to set up in the 2024-2025 fiscal year and an additional $1 million as an ongoing cost for maintenance. This Lab will be modelled on the Business Data Lab created by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which collects information on market conditions and workplaces. 

The Coalition has also recommended that “Statistics Canada be funded to create a permanent external advisory committee [which] must include meaningful representation of organizations from equity-seeking, rural, remote, Indigenous and Northern communities.” The FNDC has further recommended that Statistics Canada compensate those participating in the committee, too, and make accommodations for them to give meaningfully their perspectives. 

“A large percentage of nonprofits are small with no paid staff, often resulting in lower data literacy and capacity to participate in Statistics Canada consultations,” the proposal says. “Additionally, organizations led by and serving racialized communities can provide insight into how to collect data on their communities responsibly.”

The government needs this information, too

The Coalition submitted a similar proposal to the federal government last year, and while there was little tangible action, they had undoubtedly read the submission, Barr says. She’d heard that civil servants were referencing the submission internally. 

During the pandemic, “the federal government was reaching out to Imagine Canada for a list of organizations in Toronto serving black communities, but we don’t have that data,” Barr says. “During the Harper years, there was no hope, and they were even trying to cancel the long-form census. But the Trudeau government was emphasizing data and evidence-based action, so there was at least a possibility that we could get something going.” 

The government does have experience working with the charitable and non-profit sectors to gather this critical information, says Michael Lenczner, CEO of Ajah. It worked with the settlement sector to create the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB), which annually reports on the outcomes of immigrants who have entered Canada since 1952. 

For Lenczer, the lack of “federal leadership” is partly responsible for this information gap.

“The feds don’t care about non-profits and social services. At a provincial level, it’s really siloed. No minister is tasked with this. They’re afraid of the data more than they are excited by it.”

He adds that this decentralized nature of the federal government has led to a lack of focus on the non-profit sector. 

He also says that having no data on the sector makes it difficult to measure – or provide a benchmark for – any progress. Jacqueline Musabende, a professor at Mount Royal University and another one of the coordinating members of the FNDC, adds to this: “[Without data], we can’t learn from our experiences of what is or isn’t working. The bigger problem is when people are working without transparency or accountability.” 

Non-profits with varying degrees of data maturity encouraged to participate

Should this proposal be accepted, there is room for non-profits of various sizes and sectors to get involved in the advisory committee that Statistics Canada should set up. In the meantime, the FNDC itself is an open group that any non-profit can join. It’s an opportunity to change the often “one-way relationship” with government that the non-profit sector has and take a different approach to advocacy instead, Alam adds. 

Alam also notes that non-profits have always collected data; many are on vastly different stages of their data maturity journeys. “The FNDC is an opportunity for many organizations to learn through participation,” Barr says. “There are people who know a lot and people who know very little.” 

Non-profits might also be new to the pre-budget consultation process, but joining a coalition of similar organizations all advocating for the same policy change only strengthens it, says Tristan Smyth, chief impact and strategy officer at Warshield, a consultancy dedicated to uplifting and asserting the rights of Indigenous communities. “Multi-organization and coalition responses [to pre-budget consultations] had higher success rates because they demonstrate that there is a need in Canada beyond just one organization.” 

Having analyzed hundreds of successful submissions and cross-referenced them to what the government then chose to include in the budget, Smyth also found that those who had repeatedly lobbied public servants and ministers before submitting a pre-budget request were more likely to be successful. 

“I think this information is quite useful for the non-profit and charitable sector,” Smith says. “Corporations have figured out how to do pre-budget submissions because they have the staff and the money to hire third-party experts. They have the money to be lobbying all year long. Third sector organizations don’t have funding and capacity compared to corporate Canada.”

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