Christopher Dougherty

is an MPNL alum and a Visiting Scholar at the , University of St. Andrews, in the UK. He spoke to PANL Perspectives about his findings relating political contributions and charitable donations.

Question: What are the main factors in increased political contributions being correlated with increased charitable donations?

Christopher Dougherty: Charitable donations increase with age, gender, income and marital status. For example, women and married people are more likely to donate to charities. These factors have been consistent across cycles of Statistics Canada’s (GSS-GVP) and in the analysis done by David Lasby and Cathy Barr in the report.

What wasn’t known is how these variables (except for gender) affect the likelihood of political contributions in Canada. My results, which used data from Ontario and Alberta in 2003-2017, show increases in likelihood for age, income and marital status that align with charitable giving likelihoods. Also, women are less likely than men to make a political contribution, and that shows up in my results.

See Christopher Dougherty’s two other Q&As with PANL Perspectives: (1) “Do Private Family Foundations Engage in Political Activities Through Their Granting?” and (2) “To What Extent Do Politicians Use Canada’s Nonprofit Sector to Access Constituencies and Political Power?”

Other things that weren’t known in Canada is whether the same people are giving to charity and making political contributions. My results show that each type of giving increases the likelihood of the other, but about ten times as many people make charitable gifts as make political contributions

Political context also affects both types of giving. Living in a more politically competitive riding makes it more likely that people will give to charity and politics, and people are also more likely to give to charity in election years.

On top of that, donations are more likely when people are more educated and when they attend religious services more often, but those variables aren’t included in the data set I used, so I wasn’t able to test whether they also influence political contributions.

Question: Your research is based on a huge amount of data from the Longitudinal Administrative Databank. What’s the LAD? And how much data does it have?

Christopher Dougherty: The from individual tax returns (T1 forms). It contains a random selection of 20% of all Canadian tax filers (about 2.7 million Ontarians and 850,000 Albertans). Once an individual tax filer is in the dataset, they remain part of it until they stop filing taxes. This means that researchers can analyze how behaviour changes over time and can make clear connections between events, like elections, and behaviour, like donating to charity. The data in the LAD is protected, and research using it requires approval from Statistics Canada and can be done only in a secure research data centre.

Question: You write that this study is a first step to extending Charitable Triad Theory to political contributions. Can you explain?

Cassandra Chapman and her colleagues developed the Charitable Triad Theory, a fundraising framework about a complex interaction between donors, beneficiaries and fundraisers.

Christopher Dougherty: , developed by Dr. Cassandra Chapman and her colleagues, is a fundraising framework about a complex interaction between donors, beneficiaries and fundraisers. Things that increase the likelihood are having a beneficiary and fundraiser who speak to some part of the potential donor’s identity, like their gender, age, hobbies or political beliefs. Donations are less likely when these things aren’t aligned.

Because political contributions in Canada aren’t widely studied, partly because so few people make political contributions and partly because individuals and parties tend to keep political gifts quiet, there isn’t a lot of theory that’s specific to political donors. By showing that political contributions and charitable gifts are related and influenced by similar factors, my research can help other researchers use charitable giving theories to understand political giving.

Question: Your research suggests that being female decreases the likelihood of claiming a political contribution credit and increases the likelihood of claiming a charitable gift credit. Can you elaborate?

See “The Power of Women in Philanthropy Recording, Reports & Resources,” from an event featuring Canadian and US research about women in philanthropy. Photo is courtesy of Chris Czermak.

Christopher Dougherty: Women in Alberta and Ontario are less likely than men to make a political contribution, which is something that’s well established in Canadian political science. Women are also more likely to make a charitable gift. However, research is needed to figure out if this is because of how tax credits for the two types of giving are treated. For instance, charitable tax credits can be spread out within a household, and political credits have to be claimed by a single person up to the limit.

is an MPNL alum and is a Visiting Scholar at the , University of St. Andrews, in the UK, where he’s researching “The political expressiveness of charitable sectors in comparative perspective: Canada and its provinces and the UK and its countries.” Read his��two other Q&As with PANL Perspectives: (1) “Do Private Family Foundations Engage in Political Activities Through Their Granting?” and (2) “To What Extent Do Politicians Use Canada’s Nonprofit Sector to Access Constituencies and Political Power?”

Prof. Adegboyega Ojo

Adegboyega Ojo is a Professor and the Canada Research Chair in Governance and Artificial Intelligence in the School of Public Policy and Administration, at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University. His specialties include digital government and data-intensive public-sector innovation. He co-edited a volume in 2024 called “.” He spoke to PANL Perspectives about AI tools and technology in the public and nonprofit sectors.

Question: How is AI being used within the public and nonprofit sectors?

Adegboyega Ojo: Despite all the media frenzy about AI, and despite all we hear from government about AI, we have very little information on how public-sector and nonprofit-sector organizations are using AI technology and tools. They might be using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, but is this use driven largely by individual use, or is it part of the broader organization’s strategies and plans? As a researcher, one way to find out is to look at reports on the Canadian Open Data Portal. Unfortunately, there are very few AIAs there, and we have to submit an request — and that’s not usually very easy. Also, unfortunately, the adoption rate of AI is extremely low in the nonprofit sector. My team and I are looking at these issues.

In general, the adoption of AI in Canada seems to be slower than in other countries, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it’s good to follow a thoughtful and cautious approach to AI implementation. Last year, a found that 46% of Canadians use generative AI in their workplaces. Virtual assistants, chatbots, AI translation, and other generative AI tools are already embedded in customer relationship management systems, in marketing applications, on websites, and everywhere.

Nonprofit organizations are already using these indirectly – for instance, when using Copilot within Microsoft Office. However, in terms of direct use, the pace in the nonprofit sector is much slower at an organizational level. Individual workers might be using tools like Perplexity for searches, or Gemini or ChatGPT and other tools for brainstorming, research or drafting documents, but not much is happening in terms of organizational AI use for marketing, fundraising campaigns, and so on.

Question: How can generative AI technology help our sector in any way?

AI tools are becoming more sophisticated, particularly in the area of curated research, deep analysis and reporting, and I think adoption will ramp up soon. But users still have to check everything, because of AI hallucinations and other mistakes. For example, during queries, you should always ask for linked references for searches. A website address isn’t enough, and you have to click and check. The AI tools, like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Grok3, still make a lot of mistakes but are really good at providing linked references.

And AI tools are good at critiquing and analyzing documents. For example, you can compare a document containing specifications with another document intended to meet those specs, and request a detailed critique. AI excels at this type of analysis – at evaluating patterns, consistency, and alignment for instance – and excels less as a repository of factual knowledge.

Training employees is key. Without proper guidance, users might try AI, see the mistakes, get discouraged and think, “Oh my goodness, imagine if we sent this to a client. We’d be in serious trouble.” As a result, they may abandon the AI tool entirely. People need training on when and how to use AI effectively, understanding different contexts, modes, tasks and subtle nuances. Training and capacity building are key, even for tasks that appear straightforward.

Question: What potential harms or negative issues should we be aware of with generative AI tools?

Adegboyega Ojo: AI is changing decision-making, policy-making, service delivery and work in general. For example, and found that it may be limiting their critical thinking skills. Will a similar dependence happen in the public sector? We need to understand the impact and effects of AI, both positive and negative.

Even when AI has a positive impact, we must ask, “Positive for whom?” For instance, if an organization provides a generative-AI-based chatbot, a tool that’s gaining popularity, some users might find it convenient and efficient. But others might find the same chatbot service difficult to use, unfriendly and even harmful. A notable example is the case against Air Canada, where a chatbot misled a customer to believe they were eligible for a refund for their ticket. The case has since become a poster child for highlighting the risks of AI-driven services.

While AI does a lot of good, it also has the potential to cause harm and safety issues. There are cross-border collaborative efforts on shared understanding of things like taxonomies of AI harms based on reported incidences. This includes privacy issues, copyright issues, and different forms of bias and potential governance and legal issues. We’ll likely see a more coordinated approach to addressing these issues with time.

Also, one of the things I’ve heard repeatedly in the nonprofit space is the need for clear and practical use cases of AI in action. People want to see tangible benefits and compelling business cases for generative AI in their organizations, with potential positives and negatives clearly explained.

Prof. Adegboyega Ojo is on . Photo of apps is courtesy of Saradasish Pradhan.

Question: What is GivingTuesday doing in terms of data related to the nonprofit sector?

Samir Khan: GivingTuesday is creating better data, better tools and better insights about what’s going on in our sector — from individuals’ and institutional behaviours to trends in the nonprofit sector to how the social sector, writ large, is being resourced. This includes working with networks that aren’t government and aren’t nonprofits, such as Kickstarter and social enterprises.

Our research initiatives are held together by a research agenda that covers three topics:

1. understanding how resources are mobilized in the social sector;
2. understanding how people feel and what they do in terms of support work in their communities; and
3. understanding GivingTuesday as a lynchpin for diverse actors who work together on community participation and resource mobilization.

For instance, provides infrastructure and research technology that enables the collection, exploration and sharing of data wherever it might exist. So, we’re partly a think tank, partly a technology service, and partly a complex series of relationships with the public and private sectors. We’ve created platforms such as the “” and the – and when you go to , you’ll see a bunch of other free survey data and insights that are readable and usable for research.

Q: Which data is Canadian and which, global?

Samir Khan: We have annual surveys about giving behaviour in Canada — something called the , which has about three years of one-year snapshots of data. These were highlighted most recently in “The Giving Bridge: A Lookback at 2023 Trends in Global Generosity,” which investigates the nature of generosity globally using datasets. In Canada, as in the US, we see the same trend: a large group of people give in multiple ways.

We also house and curate datasets about giving from around the world – through . In addition to the , the supports research about the “everyday giving market,” which looks at what Indians do to support causes and issues they care about. Also, we’re forging partnerships in the , with research institutes there, to do similar types of projects.

Q: What work are you most proud of at GivingTuesday – or what stands out for you?

Samir Khan: In what feels like an increasingly fragmented and polarized time, what’s impressive to me is the data showing large numbers of people participating, donating and supporting charitable work in their communities – across many demographics. A lot of people worry about the slow decline in numbers of people participating and donating, compared to 20 years ago, but I still think there’s a lot more strength in community-purpose and social-purpose organizations than people think there is.

Q: Do you track or collect data related to Kickstarter, GoFundMe or other crowdfunding platforms?

Samir Khan: In datasets, we can see how many people are giving to individuals and can understand a bit about whether that giving is being mediated by one of those platforms. One thing that we’ve found in our datasets is that, in aggregate, people who give one way tend to give in a whole bunch of different ways to both individuals and formal nonprofits – and they tend to volunteer time as well.

Some people might say, “Supporting causes through crowdfunders is wrong, because of verification problems,” but it’s worth asking about those donors’ motivations and connections, especially because crowdfunders have evolved with new technologies. There’s probably a lot more to learn from that giving behaviour than to be fearful of.

Q: Is GivingTuesday using generative AI tools – or researching the topic of new AI tools?

Samir Khan: We published the global results of an AI readiness survey, “” It wasn’t a representative sample, but we learned that people are using generative AI to be more productive, such as creating a good first draft of something that they can edit — and that saves them time. But I think, you know, in 10 years, we’ll look up and ask ourselves if all that investment in AI was needed, whether the benefits were worth it. It’s an exciting time, assuming people know the limitations of the technology, such as “hallucinations.”

Our data science team has embraced AI in creative ways, using large language models (LLMs) to help them parse certain types of datasets – like qualitative datasets or plain-text datasets. The goal is to get AI to do more grunt work more quickly. Many folks are also using it to help them to generate first ideas for certain types of code that they know that they have to write, code that’s relatively predictable.

In terms of statistical modeling, though, I haven’t seen examples where AI has been able to do rigorous regression analysis. Maybe some of your readers or viewers will correct me. This is in the realm of social science research. I won’t speak about its applications for medical research, which I know a lot of people are excited about. Essentially, AI hasn’t been able to show evidence of reasoning that a human researcher would apply in a statistical or in a regression-analysis context. That’s my understanding of it. I might be wrong by the time this goes up!

Liban Abokor, CEO of Reimagine LABS.

According to a , only a quarter of registered charities agree or somewhat agree that they understand well the potential applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the sector, and the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions, from Statistics Canada, shows that only 7% of nonprofits say they’re already using AI. Liban Abokor hopes to change all that with , an AI-powered tool for organizations to design and implement evidence-based services and programs. Abokor is CEO of , a technology company building AI solutions for the social impact sector. He spoke with PANL Perspectives about Navigator, their first product.

Question: What is Navigator, and how did you start it?

Liban Abokor:  Navigator is a productivity tool built by specifically for the social impact sector. Think of it as your smart assistant that helps social impact organizations research, plan and launch better programs and services. What makes it special is that it works with real data and research. Let me give you an example. Say you want to start a food bank in downtown Ottawa. Navigator would pull together actual data about existing food banks in the region and help you design your own, based on your specific needs. Navigator looks at what’s worked before, what hasn’t, and helps you spot potential problems. This means you can launch faster and with fewer mistakes.

Q: What problem did you hope to solve with Reimagine LABS?

Abokor:  Navigator solves a fundamental challenge in the nonprofit sector: the time and expertise gap in program design. Right now, when organizations want to launch a new social impact program, they typically spend months doing research, planning and program design, often reinventing the wheel and working with limited information about what’s actually worked before.

What we’ve built is essentially a shortcut to success. Navigator transforms what could be a six-month research and planning process into a matter of hours. It’s like having instant access to the collective wisdom of thousands of programs and research studies. Instead of starting from scratch, organizations can learn from what’s already working, avoid common pitfalls, and design evidence-based programs from day one.

Let me give you a concrete example. If you’re planning to launch a youth mentorship program, Navigator will quickly show you successful models from across North America, provide detailed budgets based on real programs, and identify potential funding sources. This means you can focus your time and resources, rather than getting stuck in the planning phase.

What makes this especially powerful is that we’re helping nonprofits make data-driven decisions without requiring them to be data scientists. Whether you’re a small grassroots organization or an established charity, Navigator helps you to design and launch programs with the same level of rigor and amount of evidence that larger, well-resourced organizations have access to.

Q: Are you a tech expert?

Abokor: Actually, I don’t come from a tech background at all, which makes me somewhat of an outlier on our team, who bring significant experience in AI, machine learning and database management. These are the folks behind our proprietary database. Imagine the equivalent of about 15,000 books worth of interconnected social impact knowledge — that’s the database. We’ve built a smart system that links together research studies, program evaluations and real-world examples from across North America. Think of it as a massive web of information where everything is connected. When you look up food security programs, for instance, you’re not just seeing isolated examples, but rather, a network of related programs, their outcomes and lessons learned. This gives our users the ability to learn from and potentially connect with organizations running similar initiatives.

Q: How exactly does Navigator work?

Abokor: The process is really straightforward. You start by telling Navigator what social impact area you want to tackle — let’s say education. Then you get more specific about your vision: creating an entrepreneurship program for newcomers and refugees in Toronto, with the goal of helping participants develop business plans over 12 months. Navigator guides you through inputting key details about your resources, like available staff, funding, and whether you’ll run the program virtually or in-person.

What happens next is where the magic happens. Navigator doesn’t just do a simple search. It creates a comprehensive blueprint for your program. You get a detailed research summary that shows what’s worked (and what hasn’t) in similar programs. We provide a practical and customized implementation plan with everything you need: logic models, fully costed budgets, evaluation frameworks, potential funding sources, and partnership opportunities. The system is intelligent; the more specific you are about your needs, the more you input into the tool, the more tailored your blueprint becomes. Think of it as having a team of experts who design your perfect program, but at a fraction of the time and cost.

Q: Does Navigator have phone tech support?

Abokor: We’ve made Navigator really user-friendly, so most people won’t need technical support. But we’re always here to help — you can email us anytime and our team will respond right away. Anyone interested can visit our to schedule a demo.

Liban Abokor is CEO of and a Fellow at the School of Public Policy and Administration, at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University, and he’s co-founder and co-chair of the Foundation for Black Communities. He can be found on .

Restrictions on advocacy?

The restrictions on ‘advocacy’ by Canadian charities were greatly relaxed in 2018 when the federal government amended the Income Tax Act to do away with a quantitative test of how much of a charity’s resources could be devoted to ‘political activities.’�� Under the guidance that followed from the Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), charities can engage in unlimited nonpartisan provided these activities further their charitable purposes.

Are Canadian charities taking a more active role in policy development and advocacy following this sweeping regulatory change? To explore this, the Charity Insights Canada Project (CICP) conducted a series of surveys in 2023-2024 assessing the state of advocacy across the sector and how it is adapting to the new PPDDA regime.

Five years later, there is little change

Most Canadian charities do not engage in advocacy and there has been little change in the five years since the regulations were relaxed; 43% of charities report no change in their advocacy activities, and 37% note that advocacy is not relevant to their missions in the first place. Only 1% have greatly increased advocacy, while 5% have had some increase and 1% a slight decrease under the new guidance.

Survey , February 2023

Less than half (42%) of the charities in the CICP February 2023 survey (; N = 695) indicated they engage in advocacy ‘to change laws, rules or programs,’ while 50% said they do not, and 8% were not sure. When we asked the same question 18 months later in July 2024 (), there had been a slight uptick in overall advocacy engagement, with 50% of charities (N = 795) involved in advocacy efforts, up by 8%.

Charities’ advocacy engagement in 2023 and 2024
Survey , February 2023	Survey , July 2024

The overwhelming reason that charities are not active in policy dialogue and advocacy is that they do not see advocacy as relevant to their mission (45%).[1] The other main reasons for avoiding policy engagement fall into three categories (, February 2023):[2]

• Other organizations advocate on their behalf (36%);
• Lack of time (29%), expertise (26%) or financial resources (23%); and
• Fear of losing support from governments (13%), other funders (10%) or the public (8%).

The February 2024 survey reinforced resource limitations (cited by 51%), but it also surfaced two additional challenges: difficulty engaging with policymakers (33%) and difficulty identifying other organizations’ concerns and connecting with larger advocacy networks (20%).

“We used to be more involved in advocacy, but working hard without seeing any policy changes has made us refocus our energy.”

Survey , February 2023

Survey , February 2024

Interestingly, 10% – and a year later, 12% – raised concerns about violating CRA rules that could lead to a loss of charitable status. This is a misperception of the current regulation that has not dissipated over time. It suggests that many charities do not pay attention to their regulatory environment and that CRA needs to extend education and awareness of the PPDDA guidance.

“We must avoid advocacy as a charity but can educate or provide information. We have a hard time because we know we need to be careful not to cross into lobbying.”

“We need government to understand the challenges of our sector, but there’s a fear of advocating or lobbying because we don’t want to endanger our charitable status. It feels like we’re between a rock and a hard place.”

The How of policy participation: A limited toolbox

How charities engage in policy dialogue governments may range from more passive to more activist and mutual approaches:

• Passive: responding to requests for information and informal interactions with public officials (e.g., meeting elected officials in their ridings);
• Preparatory: sharing research; using social media and other communications to raise awareness and/or change perceptions of issues; encouraging others to action;
• Lobbying: meeting with elected officials and public servants; presenting briefs to Parliamentary committees; and advocating for or against a program or legislation;
• Co-production: working in an ongoing, interactive manner with government officials by serving on planning or advisory councils to co-create policy or co-produce implementation.

While 48% of Canadian charities indicate they formally meet (sometimes, often or always) with government officials, many of these discussions focus on obtaining grants or contracts. In effect, they serve an organizational self-interest rather than provide input into public policy more generally.

In general, charities tend to take passive approaches to policy such as responding to government requests for information and interacting socially with government officials. Only 22% indicate they sometimes, and only 4% often advocate for or against a bill, and only 15% have presented to parliamentary committees. There is also limited encouragement of collective action: only 26% encourage their members to contact policymakers, and only 22% release research reports that might be used by others.

In sum, policy participation by Canadian charities is bifurcated: about half engage in policy and half do not. For the half with some level of involvement, we need to question the seriousness of that involvement, given the limited array of participation tools used, particularly those aimed at influencing existing policies.

Charities value greater policy participation

Although policy participation may be limited, a strong majority of charities (76%) – including those not currently active (July 2024) – say it is important that their organizations increase their participation in PPDDAs: only 12% consider this to be not important, and 11% are unsure or have no opinion.

Survey , July 2024

When asked how charities might advocate for policy changes, there is a strong preference for relationship-building and collective action through coalitions (; N = 623). A mismatch of recommended and actual approaches is evident, however, as only 15% of charities indicate they often meet with policymakers. There seems to be a line drawn between meeting with government officials and direct lobbying, as 69% recommend relationship-building but only 39% suggest direct lobbying. There is also a distinction between sharing data, recommended by 48%, and conducting policy research (recommended by 25%). This likely reflects a lack of research capacity in most charities, as only 5% report they often release research reports.

Time to come out of the cold

Despite arguments that charities have a to participate in the development of public policy, the sector is widely for having “lost its sense of urgency, too meekly becoming a pale vessel for service delivery.” This meekness is often attributed to the ‘advocacy chill’ created by the government of Stephen Harper. While a chill may have been deepened by the Harper government, we can’t simply look back a decade to explain the current reluctance to be policy advocates, a reluctance which the CICP surveys show exists.

Fostering meaningful participation in policy dialogue for Canadian charities goes beyond recent regulatory reform. Rather, the organizational, funding and sector environments in which charities operate implicitly shape strategic decisions to avoid policy participation.

Internal barriers – lack of time, expertise and resources – prevent charities from engaging in advocacy. But, they are also constrained by their perceptions of themselves: the sense that policy engagement and advocacy are not relevant to their missions. In addition, 1 in 10 charities do not know that current regulations are very permissive in the extent of advocacy allowed. For all the talk about trust-based philanthropy, funders, including governments, foundations and individual donors, spark fears that being activist will result in lost support. The lack of coordination and collaboration by the sector itself further inhibits policy engagement. The charitable sector could help itself by sharing information about charities’ policy concerns and facilitating stronger networks and coalitions.

Finally, governments make it difficult to engage. Effective policy dialogue and development should not be an adversarial process but one that has benefits for governments in developing and implementing more informed, cost-effective, and regional- and community-sensitive policies and programs. Charities are uniquely positioned to be reliable sources of such information if they could come out from the cold.

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[1] This finding mirrors a 2023 US that found 56% of nonprofits not engaged in policy work reported that ��advocacy was not relevant to their missions. The July 2024 CICP survey replicated some of the questions of the US study, with similar findings.

[2] Participants could list more than one reason.

Nathan J. Grasse, Associate Professor, MPNL program, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University

New research examines differences in the compensation of male and female executive directors and chief financial officers in nonprofit organizations. The authors, including �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Nathan Grasse, use executive transition periods within organizations as an empirical strategy for isolating how gender impacts the salaries of two people who occupy the same role in the same organization. They analyzed compensation data on IRS 990 tax forms (publicly available forms completed by US nonprofit organizations) from the past two decades.

The good news is that more women hold executive positions and that some types of gaps in pay within organizations are relatively small. The bad news is that larger differences in pay result from an over-representation of male executives in the largest and highest-paying nonprofits.

Here’s a link to the full article: “”

A paper about gender wage gaps in the private sector comes to similar conclusions as the study above

Gender Pay Gaps Among Board Directors and Officers in Canada, from Statistics Canada (Oct. 15, 2024), is an 18-page paper based on annualized data from Canada’s 2021 Census and the Canada Revenue Agency’s tax data. Written by Dante Frias Corona, Léa‑Maude Longpré‑Verret and Michelle Ouyang, the paper finds that less than one‑quarter of executive positions are occupied by women.

Banner photo is courtesy of Christin Hume.

Question: How and when does your company focus on the nonprofit or charitable sector?

Nik Nanos: Every day. We do research almost every day of the year. It never stops – and work about the nonprofit and charitable sector is among the most important that we do. We’ve been around quite a while, since 1987, and our company has run quite a number of projects.

In Canada, we research how to engage Canadians, how to educate them on big issues, how to have greater impact in terms of social causes, and how to navigate the ecosystems of donor engagement, stakeholder engagement, community engagement and government engagement, .

We’re also doing a lot of research on how to motivate volunteers and on volunteer burnout, and how to recruit board members, how to keep donors happy, and issues like that.

For the Nanos team, work with the nonprofit sector is among the more validating sectors for us, because the team feels like they’re doing public good by supporting the charitable and nonprofit sector.

Q: How many staff do you have and how many projects?

Nanos: We have 80 to 100 staff. We run between 40 to 50 research projects simultaneously, and we have dozens of active clients. We generate a smorgasbord of insights and analyses for different sectors, like the culture sector, the health sector, public policy, telecommunications. The diversity of work is what makes it fascinating.

Q: What’s an example of a recent initiative with a nonprofit organization?

Nanos: We’re doing five projects with nonprofit groups currently. I was just on a call with a nonprofit — a nonprofit with global reach. It’s looking at research to help with strategic planning and the impacts of their brand and visual identity. And because this charity receives funds from the government, it’s trying to better understand how different elements of its charitable mission resonate with Canadians.

Working with nonprofits ranges from issues related to women and children in other countries, to issues about homelessness, to arts and culture, to people’s perceptions related to diversity in the workplace, and .

Q: In the past few decades, has anything changed in terms of your clients or the sector?

Nanos: When I first started, 30 years ago, charities could do whatever they wanted. They didn’t need evidence. They’d decide, “Here’s what we’re going to do. This is our mission. Here’s how we’ll do it.” This was a world before the internet, and it was easier to manage stakeholders then — and a lot easier to manage information and brand identity and engagement. We’ve gone from that to a nonprofit sector driven by data and micro-targeting. Also, there are a lot more levers at their disposal, levers that are generally financially affordable.

However, I notice that we’re now going through a period of haves and have-nots in the charitable and nonprofit sector. The “haves” have the resources and talent to collect and use data – and they’re getting stronger. The “have-nots” are struggling to deliver on core missions, and they don’t have the time, volunteers or internal resources to use data.

Q: Does Nanos Research aggregate data from other sources, and does it collaborate with others?

No, we’re not aggregating data from other sources, and the research that we do is original. It falls into two buckets: (1) original, proprietary data; and (2) original data that’s shared with the sector.

For example, we do a quarterly webinar, , collaborating with the National Arts Centre and Power Corporation of Canada. I present data and insights, and a panel of diverse stakeholders talk about strategies that have upped their game. A few years ago, the genesis of that project was to help the arts and culture sector get through the pandemic, and it later turned into a vehicle to share data — for the whole sector — because there are many organizations within the sector that can’t afford to collect, manage and interpret data.

Q: What does the future hold for Nanos Research?

Well, two things: Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping and portal building. We’re going to continue to do the research that we’re doing. However, we realized that the data we’ve collected over the last 30 years is probably more important, more valuable, than our revenue. Nanos Research has data about the charitable and nonprofit sector – and data from other sectors – and our future has to do with commercializing that data.

The new GIS dimension, such as , presents data so that clients can target their resources. We have our own GIS team, and the maps visualize data to geographically target activities.

And, increasingly, we’re doing more portal building, such as , because clients are asking for studies and customized data portals, so that they can self-serve their own access, analysis and studies. We have our own data-portal team. Many clients don’t have statisticians and don’t want to create their own data infrastructure, and these portals allow clients to access data 24 hours a day, and are used internally and shared with key stakeholders. These interactive portals can generate more insights than printed or electronic reports. So, those are two new things.

Photos are courtesy of Nanos Research and Martin Lipman Photography/CREA.

As I mentioned in “Four Trends in the Creation & Shutdown of Registered Charities in Canada in 2023,” the number of private foundations in Canada continues to grow, while the number of public foundations continues to fall. As of early 2024, there were 6,770 private foundations registered as charities, compared to 6,102 in 2021. Meanwhile, the number of public foundations decreased to 4,780, as of early 2024, down from 4,944 in 2021. In fact, as shown on Tables C and F (below), the decline in public foundations and increase in private foundations have been occurring for some time. To find out more, I took a closer look at 10 years of data about registrations and revocations of public and private foundations, data from the Canada Gazette and T3010 tax forms. (See our “Charity Trends and Revocations” series for other articles and insights.)

Ten Years of Public Foundations Closing Down

Click photo for Don McRae’s “Four Trends in the Creation & Shutdown of Registered Charities in Canada in 2023.”

Public Foundations are falling out of favour as a method of helping Canadians build our society. The numbers show it, and they demonstrate that this has been happening for some time. And there were surprises in what I found. While I expected most foundations to be under the Community Benefit heading (hereafter referred to as Community), I didn’t expect the percentage to be so high: 86.7% of public foundations are registered under Community (see Table A).

Also, you’ll notice in Table A (below) that the number of public foundations (registered as charities) took a dip at the start of the pandemic. Registrations started to increase in 2021 and 2022, but they took a real dip, to 38, in 2023. (Note, I actually looked at additional data, back to 2007, and the 38 registrations in 2023 is still the lowest number of registrations in the past 17 years.)

Table A: Registrations of Public Foundations from 2014 to 2023

Correspondingly, 78.5% of revoked public foundations are under Community (see Table B, below); the major charitable category revoked was “Community benefit – foundations,” with 94 charities in 2023 and 84 charities in 2022. And 13.5% of revocations were for Education charities.

Table B: Revocations of Public Foundations from 2014 to 2023

And as shown on Table C (below), there have been 711 registrations and 1,105 revocations for a net loss of 394 public foundations in the last ten years. In fact, 2012 is the last time that there were more public foundation registrations than revocations. So, the decline has been occurring for some time.

Table C: Public Foundation Revocations Over Registrations from 2014 to 2023

It’s unclear why public foundations have fallen out of favour. It could be that it takes more organization and collaboration to create a public foundation. Maybe Canadians aren’t supporting these groups to the level they were before. (United Ways have certainly found that out in terms of revenue.) It could be that governments and other funders have changed their priorities.

The Past 10 Years of Private Foundations Growing

New private foundations (65.9% of them) are registered mainly under the heading of Community, with Religion taking second place, at 16.8% (see Table D, below). There was a small dip in the number of registrations in 2020, probably due to the pandemic, but new registrations more than recovered in 2021 and onward.

Table D: Registrations of Private Foundations from 2014 to 2023��

In Table E (below), you can see that Community private foundations make up 68.3% of revocations, with Education coming in second, at 17.6%.

Table E: Revocations of Private Foundations from 2014 to 2023

As seen in Table F, below, registrations outnumber revocations of private foundations. There were 2,519 private foundations registered in the ten years from 2023 to 2014. Conversely, there were 1,184 revocations. That’s a net gain of 1,335 private foundations in the past decade. What’s striking is that registrations outnumbered revocations in all ten years (and of note, registrations outnumbered revocations all the way back to 2007).

Table F: Private Foundation Registrations vs. Revocations (2014-2023)

Why All This Matters: A Major Shift in Canada?

Illustration: “Of Pride,” in John Day’s “A Christall Glasse of Christian Reformation,” London, 1569.

I, for one, am concerned that there are fewer public foundations than before, because the trend suggests that our common understanding of charity is changing from a public duty to private effort and, frankly, moving toward a more of how our society takes care of others. In other words, what we view as worthwhile charitable causes or acts is becoming more privatized, more limited and perhaps more about the rich giving to the “needy” (there are still Canadian charities that use that term).

When you consider the number of closed charities, including shuttered public foundations, you have a picture of a loss of a number of community organizations in all parts of Canada — in cities, towns and villages across all provinces and territories — encompassing every major activity that charities undertake.

The increase in private foundations may reflect the current distribution of wealth in Canadian society and the increasing gap between those who have and those who don’t – or more precisely, between those who have a lot and those who deserve a whole lot more. However, the increase in the number of private foundations might also suggest that our society may be increasingly viewing monied individuals’ or families’ predilections of charity in a more favourable light than collective or community responses. If so, we’re poorer for it.

Don McRae is an old, left-handed, male, Scottish agnostic with Wesleyan-Methodist grandparents (hence the agnosticism). He’s also a former federal public servant and a longstanding volunteer, consultant, writer and researcher on the charitable sector. For more than ten years, McRae has studied trends in the charitable sector by analyzing the revocations of charitable status that are published in the Canada Gazette. He digs deeper into trends by examining data from annual charity tax returns (T3010 forms) at the end of the calendar year, and looks at newly registered charities to see what replaces the revoked ones. McRae can be found on .

Photo is courtesy of Janko Ferlic.

Last year, 1,471 new charities registered with the Canada Revenue Agency. During that time, the CRA revoked the registration status of 2,116 charities. That means there were 645 fewer charities in Canada as of early 2024. Year after year, there are fewer registered charities in Canada; there are approximately 86,000 charities currently. By analyzing the revocations data of charitable status that are published in the Canada Gazette and by examining data from registered charities’ annual charity tax returns (their T3010 tax forms), we can identify four trends in our sector. (This story is part of our “Charity Trends and Revocations” series.)

#1 Losing Ground at Christian Charities

Church closings are likely to continue. In 2019, the National Trust of Canada predicted that 9,000 places of worship will close in the next decade.

��’v�� said this before, and I’ll say it again, the Christians are taking a beating. In 2023, there were 340 Christian charities created and 635 revoked for a net loss of 295 registered charities, including about 150 that had been around for at least half a century. Every year, more churches, along with their charitable activities, close, due in large part to pandemic waves that stopped congregations from meeting and raising revenue. It also appears that the continuing waves of COVID infections made older congregants think twice before attending church services. In 2022, religious charities made up approximately 31% of all revocations. In 2023, this increased to 36%.

As I wrote in “Church Closures and the Loss of Community Social Capital,” these closures represent a loss of community capacity that will be hard to rebuild, especially at a person-to-person level. When faith buildings close down, their spaces for community activities (such as arts, culture, sports, recreation, social clubs, education, food banks and social services) also close down.

There are approximately 25,900 Christianity-based registered charities in Canada, and thousands more, along with their charities, will likely close.

And church closings are likely to continue. In 2019, the National Trust of Canada predicted that 9,000 places of worship will close in the next 10 years, and it’s clear, from the revocation data on charities, that the bulk of the closings will be mainstream Christian churches. We’re about half way through those 10 years — so thousands more churches and their charities are likely to close.

Other major religions in Canada are creating more charities than they’re losing. Judging from charity names and based on trends, the new religious charities are for non-Christian religions and smaller Christian denominations. For example, the number of Islam-based registered charities increased to 511. (See Table 1).

Table 1: Number of Charities by Category Code for Calendar Years 2022 and 2023

#2 Losing More Ground at Arts Charities and Volunteer-Run Charities

Volunteer-supporting charities are closing at alarming rates.

In addition to losing more church-based charities, Canada has lost almost 300 arts groups over the past three years. Approximately one-fifth of them were arts charities that taught people to act, sing, dance, paint and undertake other artistic endeavours. In short, a number of arts groups lost the opportunity to perform and, therefore, generate revenue. Also, many theatre companies and other arts group continue to face pandemic-caused economic woes. People aren’t returning to theatres for instance, and some theatres are in danger of losing their buildings.

And Canada has lost another swath of community-building charities: historical societies, hospital and seniors’ residence auxiliaries, literacy groups, museums, seniors’ centres, parent-run school councils, and other charities. A good number of these were run by volunteers.

In addition, there were a number of community-based groups that stopped meeting and/or lost revenue during the pandemic. Many of these helped others with information, counselling, the provision of food/warmth, daycare and after-school spaces.

Lastly, we’re losing public foundations. Some of these were fundraising vehicles for specific groups, but a number were community-based fundraising and granting bodies. (See “Private Foundations Expand as Public Foundations Close Down.”)

#3 The Pandemic Effect Still Shows

More than one fifth of charities reported significant decreases in revenue in their last five years of operations.

Pandemic restrictions from the past are still playing out with charities by stopping or severely limiting charities’ revenue generation. In 2023, COVID led to close-downs of literacy groups, hospital charities and many long-standing welfare and social services groups, some of whom (such as the Edmonton Safety Council, Canadian Arctic Resources, and Employee Charitable Trusts) had been around for more than 60 years. The pandemic closures in 2023 mirror what happened in previous years (see my “Revocations Data Shows COVID Crisis Led to Charity Closures”).

More than one fifth of charities reported significant decreases in revenue in their last five years: 426 out of 1,936 charities faced voluntary revocations and failure-to-file revocations. A number of these charities’ T3010 tax forms contained comments about stopping their activities and trying to wait out pandemic restrictions on holding meetings, performances and classes. Not all of these decreases in revenue were necessarily COVID related. Revocation data before the pandemic had shown similar decreases, but not to the degree of the past four years. Similarly, some new charities never gained traction; a number of charities that registered during the pandemic never submitted their first T3010.

Speaking of inactivity, 470 charities were moribund; that is, 470 out 1,936 revocations (or 24%) included no or little charitable activity in 2023. The number was 451 (or 29%) in 2022, so being moribund remains about the same in both years — and is still a major factor in revocations.

What many people don’t know is that there are still a high number of inactive charities in Canada that have four or five years of no revenue and no activity, which leads one to believe that the overall number of charities will continue its slow but steady reduction in numbers.

#4 Increase in Number of Foundations

Click the image for Don McRae’s closer look at foundations in Canada: “Private Foundations Expand as Public Foundations Close Down in Past 10 years.”

The trend from previous years continued in 2023 with the number of foundations increasing to 13.5% of all registered charities in Canada — for a total of 11,550 private and public foundations. Also, last year, the number of private foundations in Canada continued to grow (to 6,770 private foundations), while the number of public foundations continued to fall (to 4,780 public foundations). Here are some of the new foundations that started in 2023:

• Edmonton Elks Foundation
• Saskatchewan Indigenous Community Foundation
• Northern Lights Community Foundation – Fort McMurray
• Jeunes Philanthropes de Quebec
• Black Culture and Heritage Foundation for Canada
• Markham Foundation for the Performing Arts
• Operation Underground Railroad, Inc.
• Subway Care Foundation

For a more detailed analysis of trends in foundations in Canada, see McRae’s “Private Foundations Expand as Public Foundations Close Down in Past 10 Years.”

Don McRae is an old, left-handed, male, Scottish agnostic with Wesleyan-Methodist grandparents (hence the agnosticism). He’s also a former federal public servant and a longstanding volunteer, consultant, writer and researcher on the charitable sector. For more than ten years, McRae has studied trends in the charitable sector by analyzing the revocations of charitable status that are published in the Canada Gazette. He digs deeper into trends by examining data from annual charity tax returns (T3010 forms) at the end of the calendar year, and looks at newly registered charities to see what replaces the revoked ones. McRae can be found on .

Photos are courtesy of Karl Fredrickson, Ruth Gledhill, Piron Guillaume and Luke Chesser.