Investing in regulation

The Carney government is preoccupied, as Canadians expect it to be, with protecting the country鈥檚 sovereignty, fighting US tariffs and reducing internal trade barriers. The also committed the federal government to a new fiscal discipline and improving public sector productivity by deploying technology. This means adjusting how we do things and investing in new technologies to save money and deliver better results.

Investment in modernizing the regulation of Canadian charities is a relatively easy, but impactful, way to realize cost savings for government, make administration easier for charities, deter fraud and increase transparency and understanding of this important sector. All Canadians have a stake in this, even those who haven鈥檛 thought much about charity regulation.

Canadians expect charities to be administered and regulated with integrity regardless of whether they have substantial or limited resources.

The 85,500 registered Canadian charities are enormously diverse. They include large, government-affiliated organizations (such as universities and hospitals), grantmaking foundations, and social service, arts, environmental, faith-based and community organizations, among many others. What they all have in common is governance by volunteer boards of directors and a requirement to provide public benefit. Collectively, the sector accounts for 1 in 10 full-time jobs and holds $503 billion in assets; the 11,000 foundations alone have assets of $142 billion. While these aggregate numbers are large, the reality is that 40% of charities are small, operating with one or no staff.

Some of the challenges, including fraud

The headquarters of the Canada Revenue Agency. The Charities Directorate, a component of the CRA, has oversight responsibility for charities, while the Department of Finance sets overarching policies and regulations under the Income Tax Act.

Charities are exempt from income taxes and many other taxes, and can issue tax receipts for donations. Donations are a vital source of revenue for charities, particularly when government funding is reduced. The tax credit, which is very generous in Canada, is a significant 鈥榯ax expenditure鈥� 鈥� about $4 billion per year that the federal government chooses not to collect to incentivize private giving. In effect, all Canadians support charities, whether directly through donations or indirectly through the charitable tax credit. Canadians thus expect charities to be administered and regulated with integrity regardless of whether they have substantial or limited resources.

The Charities Directorate, a component of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), has oversight responsibility for charities, while the Department of Finance sets overarching policies and regulations under the Income Tax Act. The Charities Directorate registers organizations for charitable status, administers relevant regulations, provides guidance and education, monitors the activities of charities, audits for non-compliance, and can issue sanctions or revoke charitable status for those found non-compliant. All charities must file an annual tax return (T3010) with the Charities Directorate, which becomes public information. To ensure that charities direct their resources to charitable purposes, they are required to annually disburse 5% of their assets (not used for charitable purposes), a requirement known as the Disbursement Quota (DQ). While operating charities readily meet this requirement, the DQ is more significant for grantmaking foundations that should be disbursing millions of dollars each year.

The Charities Directorate appropriately assumes that most charities want to comply with the regulations. It takes an education-first approach to assist charities (especially small ones) in understanding how to comply and assumes a risk-based approach to auditing those that might be offside. Canadians expect the CRA to address compliance issues in a timely and effective manner to maintain trust and confidence in the charitable sector.

Compared to other high-income countries, Canada has been distinctively prone to abuse: tax shelters involving fraudulent charitable gift arrangements have cost Canadian taxpayers over $4.5 billion, and this is only the portion that have been caught.

While the vast majority of charities are prudent and trustworthy, charities are also subject to mischief and outright fraud. This is mainly due to unscrupulous individuals who take advantage of charities for purposes of overly aggressive tax planning or avoidance, providing private benefits to themselves, financing for-profit operations through charities, or sending funds offshore. They may do so by setting up networks of 鈥榮helf鈥� charities that circulate funds among themselves, which is hard to trace, by inflating the value of donated goods and issuing tax credits worth more than the actual donations, or by a variety of other devious schemes. Compared to other high-income countries, Canada has been distinctively prone to such abuse: tax shelters involving fraudulent charitable gift arrangements have cost Canadian taxpayers over $4.5 billion, and this is only the portion that have been caught. Both the federal government and the charitable sector have an interest in correcting this because abuse defrauds taxpayers, penalizes charities who might lose donations or other support to these bad actors, and erodes public confidence in both government and charities.

An underlying problem is that the Charities Directorate still operates in the paper world of a generation ago, because previous governments did not invested in making it a digitally-enabled regulator akin to those of the UK or Australia. An investment in technology would save money and deliver better results.

Solutions for regulation, education and enforcement

In March, 2025, the Charity Insights Canada Project (CICP) surveyed charities about their experiences with filing Form T3010. Read a summary of the survey results: /cicp-pcpob/2024/navigating-form-t3010-insights-into-challenges-and-strategies-for-charities-in-canada-2

The number one compliance challenge for charities is filing the annual tax form (CICP, March 2025). The T3010 form can be completed online: 20% of charities complete and file it online. But, 80% download the file, fill it in manually and mail or fax it to CRA, mainly because the online system is so clunky that it is easier to submit by hand. Omissions or mistakes made by the person (often a volunteer) completing the form thus cannot be automatically detected before filing. The Charities Directorate staff then have to key in the information from about 68,000 organizations, which is costly, takes a long time, and results in a multitude of additional errors. This is sheer madness in a digital-AI era.

Charities should be easily able 鈥� and be incentivized 鈥� to file their annual tax return electronically, assuming appropriate technology supports doing so. This would fix the enormous inefficiencies with the filing system which result in extensive inaccuracies in the data reported. Digital filing could give rise to a cottage industry providing software assistance, making this process much easier for small charities reliant on volunteers. The Charities Directorate has begun to more proactively with some certified third-party software and easier sign-in to the CRA account, but the underlying digital infrastructure remains an issue.

Better technology would help the Charities Directorate ensure that foundations are meeting their annual 5% Disbursement Quota. The potential extent of under-performance by foundations is not transparent and often difficult to assess because many do not provide the relevant data or proper calculation of the DQ on the T3010, and filers are not prompted to correct the form before submission. With digital filing supported by better technology, 鈥楴otices of Filing鈥� could be automatically generated, akin to the notices provided for individual and corporate filers, so foundations can self-correct and the Directorate could better monitor any non-compliance.

Read Jean-Marc Mangin’s take on the T3010 and data-collection and data-analysis issues — and the role of government in our sector. He’s the President & CEO of Philanthropic Foundations Canada.

The Charities Directorate could also better educate boards of directors about their governance responsibilities related to compliance and be better able to catch fraud. The existing system does not allow the Directorate to easily update a charity鈥檚 list of directors (which normally change every few years). Consequently, they miss out on providing educational compliance resources to new directors, helping them to fulfil their responsibilities more effectively. It is also difficult to identify multiple charities that are run by the same set of directors, which is a red flag for mischief afoot.

Although people who have been involved in gifting scams or convicted of other relevant crimes involving financial dishonesty are ineligible to serve as board members or charity CEOs, it is difficult for CRA to identify them once a charity is registered.

Having the names of directors input electronically with the annual filing would provide the Charities Directorate with an up-to-date list of ineligible individuals.

In addition to the filing database, the Directorate鈥檚 other legacy computer systems reportedly can鈥檛 communicate with each other or with those in other government departments. Consequently, when a charity is being investigated for serious non-compliance, it can take months to revoke its status and publish an official notice, allowing the offending charity to keep operating and taking donations from an unsuspecting public. When a charity applies for a contract, grant or contribution from a line department, that department cannot obtain information on its financial situation directly from CRA. Rather, it collects such information anew from the applicant charity, which simply creates extra work for the charity and is costly to the department.

Canada could take lessons from Australia when it created a new digital-first charity regulator in 2012 using e-filing and the data-sharing principle of 鈥渞eport once, use often.鈥�

Small changes will lead to large impacts

With a relatively small investment in better technology for charity regulation, the Government of Canada can spend less and allow charities and philanthropy to invest more.

Smart investment can pay off in another way that multiples the value of a digital-first regulator: additional public and private investment could create a collaborative university-sector Charity Data Lab, the equivalent of the Business Data Lab hosted by the Chamber of Commerce. Such a partner Lab would provide real-time, future-focused insights on the sector that help governments, other stakeholders and citizens better understand and engage with charities and be more intentional and impactful with their philanthropy.

Beyond the benefits that would flow from improving the digital capacity of the charity regulator, an organizational realignment could further enhance its work at virtually no cost. While federal regulation of charities hinges on its constitutional authority for taxation, the Charities Directorate is an odd fit with the much larger taxation part of CRA, which is focused on collecting revenues and ensuring people pay taxes, rather than supporting organizations that do not.

When the main taxation part of CRA gets the sniffles due to an issue with tax collection, the Charities Directorate catches pneumonia: it is overshadowed and distracted from its work.

The expertise and specialized work of the Charities Directorate could be improved by carving it out from CRA to be a separate agency under the Income Tax Act and mandate of the Minister of Finance and National Revenue (and Secretary of State for CRA). This follows a similar logic to the creation in 2004 of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) separate from Health Canada over concerns that the federal government lacked the capacity to effectively respond to public health threats.

Canada鈥檚 charitable sector is similarly underserved and invisible in public policy because it is hidden away in the tax agency. Such a move (accompanied by legislative amendments) could also loosen some of the rigid privacy restrictions of the Income Tax Act that appropriately apply to individuals and corporations but are not relevant to charities, thus allowing data sharing across departments and making charity regulation more transparent.

relies on people coming together to build strong, engaged inclusive communities 鈥� places with a sense of belonging where people want to live and work. Governments at all levels have a part in incentivizing and supporting a vibrant civil society as one means of attracting global talent, thereby enhancing the country鈥檚 productivity. With a recession looming, Canadians will depend more than ever on a wide array of charities and other community organizations that will have to be even more resilient and innovative. As with the private sector, efficient, responsive and effective regulation matters. With a relatively small investment in better technology for charity regulation, the Government of Canada can spend less and allow charities and philanthropy to invest more.

Dr. Susan D. Phillips is a Professor Emerita in the MPNL program, and researches comparative public policy for the third sector, philanthropy and nonprofits, and public management. In 2023, she published 鈥淧hilanthropic Response to Disasters: Gifts, Givers and Consequences,鈥� with by Alexandra Williamson and Diana Leat. Read Susan鈥檚 full bio.

Charity law in Canada innovates at a glacial pace, but reform is essential to address modern problems in our sector. We can’t rely on the 400-year-old Statute of Elizabeth 1601 to address 21st-century issues. To further a reform process, we must have a better understanding of what’s happening now, but that鈥檚 not possible with the existing rules of confidentiality at Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). For instance, while 77% of charity applications were approved by CRA in 2022-23, we have zero visibility into why the other 23% didn’t succeed. Is this level of secrecy still serving the public interest?

Something needs to change.

In an essay, 鈥淲hat We Don鈥檛 Know Does Hurt Us,鈥� for the Pemsel Case Foundation, , CEO of the Muttart Foundation, provides compelling arguments for how increased transparency could strengthen the sector. He looks at what could change in terms of Registration and Compliance within the Charities Directorate, a group within CRA, and what could change in the Appeals Branch of CRA, including whether CRA鈥檚 requirement for secrecy should be waived in certain cases when CRA itself is accused of improper behaviour.

Click here for the 17-page pdf: What We Don鈥檛 Know Does Hurt Us, By Bob Wyatt, 2024

Banner photo is courtesy of Michel Rathwell.

In 2023, Christopher Dougherty received the H. Woods Bowman Student Award from ARNOVA for preliminary results from his .

Recently, completed research that asks, “How does government funding for charities change when the party in power changes?” His answer is based on data sets covering the provinces of Ontario and Alberta from 2003 to 2017. In a , he analyzed changes in electoral district representatives and governments, looking at which nonprofits gained new funding and which lost funding — and the extent to which the changes reflected the interests of new governments. Dougherty spoke to PANL Perspectives about his findings.

Question: What inspired you to tackle this study about government funding of charities?

The Allan Inquiry into environmental charities, under the Jason Kenney government in Alberta, cost taxpayers $3.5 million and concluded that environmental groups had done nothing wrong, aside from raise awareness about climate change — and a few charities sued for defamation afterwards. Photo is courtesy of Andre Forget.

Christopher Dougherty: 杏吧原创 half of all revenue for the charitable sector in Canada comes from federal, provincial and municipal governments, and governments can be quite vocal about which charities they want to support and which they don鈥檛 want to. I鈥檓 originally from Alberta, so the , under the Jason Kenney government, was top of mind, as were the .

There’s also . So, I wanted to see how governments move charity funding around to match their policy and political goals.

Q: You write that in Ontario, changes in funding reflect partisan identity as governments and local representatives change. Can you give examples of this — or explain what you mean?

After the Dalton McGuinty government was elected in Ontario in 2003, Jewish religious charities, social services, health, animal welfare, and parks and environment all saw cuts that year or the year after the change in provincial government.

Christopher Dougherty: When there鈥檚 a new federal government, charities in Ontario see some of the biggest changes in funding. When I add together all of the federal government revenue to charities in electoral districts (excluding hospitals and post-secondary schools), they receive 27% more funding in a new government鈥檚 first year, when controlling for other variables. When I looked at a sub-sector, instead of an electoral district, new federal governments grant more to Ontario charities that are in the post-secondary education sub-sector, 鈥榦ther鈥� religious (not Christian, Muslim or Jewish) sub-sector, and social services sub-sector. Since post-secondary and social services are both provincial responsibilities, federal spending in these sub-sectors indicates something beyond direct program spending.

While new federal governments increase spending to some sectors after being elected, new provincial governments tend to cut spending. In Ontario, Jewish religious charities, social services, health, animal welfare, and parks and environment all saw cuts in the year or in the year after the 2003 change in provincial government, when controlling for other variables.

Q: In Alberta, there’s less change in funding to charities around elections and changes in government. Is there an example of this?

Read “Do Private Family Foundations Engage in Political Activities Through Their Granting?” by Christopher Dougherty.

Christopher Dougherty: Alberta sees far fewer changes and smaller changes to its funding following elections and changes in government. The biggest changes are increases to Christian religious charities and missionary religious charities in election years and in a new government鈥檚 first year. Funding changes in other sub-sectors involve smaller numbers of charities, so the changes might not be due to big patterns and are likely because of changes involving individual charities.

Q: You write, “The combined results show that the charitable sector is indeed an outlet for aggregating and expressing collective identities, but that the degree to which this happens depends on the political context.” What to you mean?

Samantha Zuhlke, a prof at the University of Iowa, found that politicians in the US use charities to access constituencies and political power. Canadian politicians seem to be doing the same thing.

Christopher Dougherty: One of the interesting things in these results is that elections, new governments, and electoral district competitiveness seem to be behind a lot of the changes in charity funding. The party that forms government, the party representing an electoral district, and whether an electoral district is in government or opposition all seem to matter less.

For me, this suggests that politicians use charity funding to achieve political goals: gaining or keeping power. Jane Jenson wrote more than 30 years ago that politics is about creating constituencies and building support for collective identities, which charities do, and Samantha Zuhlke found in the US that politicians use charities to access constituencies and their political power. Canadian politicians seem to be doing just that鈥攖rading funding (or the promise of funding) to constituencies represented by charities in exchange for votes. And, they are doing this more in electoral districts that are more politically competitive and that are located in more competitive parts of the country (in Ontario, for example, compared to Alberta).

Q: Did anything surprise you in this study related to charity revenue and government?

Christopher Dougherty: The degree to which federal government funding changes for charities in the post-secondary, hospital, and social services sub-sectors was surprising, because each of these sub-sectors is in an area of provincial responsibility. It will be important to take a closer look at what’s happening here.

The other surprising finding was the role of religious charities in the results. It鈥檚 not clear, in the data set, which funding is going to congregations and which funding is going to religiously-affiliated service charities, and that needs a closer look.

Overall, the results suggest some interesting trends, and I plan to look at other provinces to see if these trends show up in other places with different political situations.

Christopher Dougherty has PhD in Public Policy from the School of Public Policy and Administration and he completed a Master of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership (MPNL), both at 杏吧原创 University. His research focuses on the charitable sector in Canada. He’s currently a Visiting Scholar at the Business School of the University of St Andrews, in the UK. He can be found on .

Restrictions on advocacy?

The restrictions on 鈥榓dvocacy鈥� 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鈥檚 resources could be devoted to 鈥榩olitical activities.鈥櫬� 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 鈥榯o change laws, rules or programs,鈥� 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鈥� 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鈥� 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% 鈥� and a year later, 12% 鈥� 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.”

鈥淲e need government to understand the challenges of our sector, but there鈥檚 a fear of advocating or lobbying because we don鈥檛 want to endanger our charitable status. It feels like we鈥檙e 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%) 鈥� including those not currently active (July 2024) 鈥� 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 鈥榓dvocacy chill鈥� created by the government of Stephen Harper. While a chill may have been deepened by the Harper government, we can鈥檛 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 鈥� lack of time, expertise and resources 鈥� 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鈥� 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 聽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.

Question: How did the plan for a Labour Force Strategy start?

Anita Khanna: This issue got on the radar of in 2021, when we spoke to our community impact leaders network, who lead local investment and partnership work. They鈥檙e very connected to community organizations across the country. We asked them about issues in the sector, and we heard a lot about staff recruitment and retention challenges, including high levels of burn out among front line staff in the community services sector and labour shortages, with some workers leaving for other sectors with better pay and benefits. We’ve always had those issues, but the tone we heard — this was during the pandemic — was very stark.

Organizations in this country often get project-based funding, which means that wages end up being low, relative to the high education levels required and the high occupational risks that staff typically face. Also, staff members often work from contract to contract, often with no or minimal benefits and with various levels of precarity.

We also spoke to our about solutions. Together, we’d advocated for the Community Services Recovery Fund, a $400 million investment in our sector, the first of its kind in Canada, so they knew a lot about policy, advocacy and sector issues.

After all this feedback, it became evident that a Labour Force Strategy would help.

Q: What exactly is a labour force strategy?

“Our Labour Force Strategy isn’t for only United Ways and Centraides. It’s for the entire community-services sector. We’re second only to the government in terms of funding of community and human services in Canada. We’ve been advocating for a labour force strategy at the national level, with the federal government, since 2022. Imagine Canada has also advocated for a strategy.” –Anita Khanna

Khanna: It’s a broad range of tools focused on workers in a certain sector, spanning everything from a review of compensation to a review of patterns of education within the sector. It also includes looking at pathways into a particular career or sector, including demand for the services provided today and projected tomorrow. So, it looks at the demographics of people who enter the field and at working conditions, pay scales, hours of work, and all the rest.

The nonprofit sector is unique, because it’s funded by all levels of government, as well as by foundations, philanthropy, and individual donations. It’s highly relied upon by all levels of government to meet their own priorities, such as delivering childcare, decreasing homelessness, welcoming newcomers and refugees, and recovering from emergencies, such as climate disasters or the pandemic. The sector is heavily relied upon but often overlooked.

Social services would not exist in communities across Canada without our sector, and our sector can’t do its work without people 鈥� and these workers aren’t going to be automated away. Their work is often high-touch, skilled work.

Q: What will be the scope of the Strategy, and who could use it?

The Labour Force Strategy will increase awareness of the nonprofit sector’s impact, identify challenges and levers of change, develop, and prioritize policy and program solutions, and call on governments, educational institutions, community service organizations, funders and philanthropic organizations to implement the strategy.

Khanna: Our project is focused on paid workers in the care economy within the community services sector, such as early childhood educators, caretakers of seniors or those with disabilities, people in the housing and homelessness sector, those offering services in immigration and settlement, mental-health workers, people helping those facing gender-based violence, and various other jobs in community services.

We’re taking an ecosystems approach to developing solutions in the sector; we know we need all hands on deck when it comes to improving the quality of working conditions and achieving decent work in the sector. Solutions will call on government at the federal, provincial and territorial levels, as well as foundations and the organizations who fund or employ these workers.

With $1.5 million in funding from the McConnell Foundation, we’re able to convene a diverse coalition of sector leaders, partners and funders to lead the work. We’ll develop a clear government-relations and communications agenda that aims to raise awareness about the state of the sector and identify roles for changemakers to improve compensation, working conditions and other levers for change.

Q: Given that the sector has known for a long time that pay scales are low and benefits are slim, is a Labour Force Strategy needed?

Khanna: The Labour Force Strategy is about finding solutions and calling for action from all levels of government, philanthropic organizations, other funders and the sector itself to identify the role they can play in implementation. Some work has been done on this before, but our labour force strategy is new and adapts and builds on that past work.

And it鈥檚 led by the community services sector itself. We鈥檒l use the catalytic investment from the McConnell Foundation to ensure we understand current conditions and identify, explore and test a variety of policy and program solutions that will address the challenges being faced now.

This will include addressing concerns with funding of the sector, because how the sector is funded by government and by philanthropic organizations, like foundations and United Ways, are directly tied to how workers are compensated and what benefits can be offered. We want the project to address labour force issues primarily at the systemic level and not solely by placing the burden for change with organizations and individuals. This work will change outcomes for workers in the community services sector for the long term and if done well, will strengthen and sustain the programs and services that can be accessed by individuals in communities across Canada.

We need more workers in the sector, and we need current workers to be compensated fairly and experience improved working conditions. To achieve that, something new must happen.

This is about everyone who’s involved in funding and supporting the sector taking action to solve a wicked problem that鈥檚 been occurring for some time.

Anita Khanna is on . Photos are courtesy of UWCC.

Joe O’Brien, Minister of State for Community Development, Integration and Charities, speaks with someone at the launch of the National Philanthropy Policy.

In December 2023, the government of Ireland launched the National Philanthropy Policy to deepen understanding and knowledge, to create an enabling environment and to accelerate engagement with philanthropy in Ireland for social good.

The policy focuses on five objectives between now and 2028:

1. Communication and Awareness Raising
2. Data and Research
3. Stimulating and Incentivising Philanthropy
4. Government and Sectoral Partnership
5. Capacity Building

Click .

Question: How is your work as a performing artist connected to your work as an arts researcher?

Megan Lindsay (as Mary Magdalene) in Opera Atelier鈥檚 “The Resurrection” (2021). Photo by Bruce Zinger.

Lindsay: As a musician, I鈥檓 very aware of the power of nonverbal communication. It has informed my curiosity about the 鈥渁ffective capacity鈥� of words, images, sounds, structures and policies. Affects are the vital forces beyond emotions. They’re the shivers we get from watching or reading something compelling. Affects also flow through policies and structures, and can create barriers. The languages, expectations and institutional norms within the arts sector reproduce barriers for many.

My work deals with understanding how these seemingly intangible forces shape our everyday lives. Specifically, I鈥檓 curious about which systems support or hinder a healthy, safe and exciting artistic landscape. This often involves refuting a homogeneous definition of arts and culture. It involves honest conversations about the lived experiences of artists and of precarity. It involves reflection and a deep honour for a multitude of different cultural expressions.

Q: What have you been researching in terms of post-pandemic arts organizations?

尝颈苍诲蝉补测:听Right now, I’m working on a research project called 鈥淧andemic Preparedness.鈥� It’s a project funded by the British Academy that looks at policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the performing arts in G7 countries. I just wrapped up 鈥淏eing Together,鈥� a SSHRC-funded project on how theatre audiences experience the feeling of being in close proximity. My ongoing work looks at how perceptions of 鈥渋mpact鈥� are constructed between artists and mechanisms of public funding. Much of my research is rooted in understanding how artists relate to policies and institutional structures, and how these structures are positioned within civil society. In the wake of the pandemic, this work feels timely. Challenging, but timely. I鈥檓 grateful to be an artist doing this research. My experience has informed my approach.

Q: What has changed in arts organizations in Canada since movements regarding racialized communities, Indigenous people and #MeToo?

Lindsay: First, I want to be transparent about being a white settler working in both academia and classical music. There are people who would be able to speak to this question with more depth than I would, so I’d prefer to take this opportunity to point to the work of those leading change across the sector.

Governance can mean different things to different people. Many interesting organizations,聽like are working on subverting organizational structures and exploring new ideas of artistic leadership. They鈥檙e exploring new ideas for board governance and co-leadership, alongside a rich and innovative artistic season.

I’m on the editorial committee of , a Canadian digital magazine that looks at art and social justice. The perspectives, stories and issues that they’re moving forward are integral to redistributing power in the Canadian arts. Across the landscape, there’s conscious critique about the difference between calls for decolonization and actions toward decolonization.

The 鈥淎 Culture of Exploitation: ‘Reconciliation’ and the Institutions of Canadian Art鈥� touches on how Canadian art institutions have been plagued by tokenism and inequality. They point to a series of Standards of Achievement for the Relationship Between

Indigenous Peoples & Cultural Institutions in Canada. This is a critical piece for anyone working in the arts in Canada.

Q: What are artists doing differently in terms of social issues and spaces?

Artscape, a group of not-for-profit organizations, was at the forefront of creating resources and spaces for artists. It entered into receivership this year.

Lindsay: Artists are increasingly engaged in advocacy, and the civic role of the arts is deeply embedded in practice.

It鈥檚 a complicated time. While we鈥檙e seeing artists de-centering Eurocentric knowledges and ways of being, the arts in Canada are deeply reliant on structures that many seek to subvert. Some artists are reimagining futures, some are embedded in community-building, some are doing the important work of language revitalization. We sing, we dance, we write, we laugh. There isn鈥檛 one homogenous definition of “social” or “impactful.” What’s important to note, though, is the 鈥渄ouble burden鈥� of artists who are encouraged (or compelled) to have both a civic and aesthetic output. There are expectations for artists to fulfill both an aesthetic and civic role, but not an increase in resources to support these responsibilities. As we look toward a shifting role of the arts and culture in Canada, we must be mindful not to laud artists as agents of social change without supporting their capacity to enact this change.

Q: In opera specifically, what changes have you noticed in relation to social issues?

Lindsay: That鈥檚 an interesting question. In the wake of the pandemic, opera is dealing with a loss of audience, an aging patron base, issues of burnout, and an interrogation of its role in society. For that reason, companies are balancing new works with revivals and stalwart productions.聽 is exploring digital works and partnerships with larger institutions in order to support an emerging generation of artists. And is doing some really cool things at the intersection of virtual reality and opera. Larger organizations are partnering with indie and grassroots companies to resource share. The , who’s co-founder of , on a solo show that explores how conventions of race and gender exist within the canon. There are tons of critical pieces and initiatives being put forward. Running parallel to this, we see that companies are accepting entertainment and spectacle as an equally important part of the landscape. Different productions inevitably have different aspirations.

Q: Overall, is there a role for the arts in addressing social change?

Lindsay: There isn鈥檛 one straight answer to that. I presume that the answer will also vary depending on who you ask. The instrumentalization of the arts 鈥� using the arts to address broader social or economic issues 鈥� has been embedded in our cultural policy and rationale (and public consciousness) for quite some time.

The arts are inherently social, but the 鈥渟ocialness鈥� of the arts can also be exploited. Scholar Adam Saifer looks at 鈥渁rt for social change philanthropy.鈥� He points to the fact that this 鈥榩rogressive turn鈥� in arts philanthropy often commodifies artists (particularly the racialized poor) without shifting their material or economic realities. This is important work.

The arts鈥� fluidity, immeasurability and subjectivity leaves it open to take on many forms and absorb many claims. This presents a host of challenges. It also makes for a beautiful, fertile ground for experimentation, world-building and hope. I love academia and research and am deeply grateful for the privilege to contribute here. I am an artist in my bones, though.

Meghan Lindsay is on . Banner photo is courtesy of Gabriel Varaljay. Photo of Artscape Theatre Centre is courtesy of Adamina and Wiki Commons.

Kristen Pue

Kristen Pue is a Policy Analyst in the department of Employment and Social Development Canada. She spoke to PANL Perspectives about her research when she was a post-doctoral fellow at 杏吧原创 University (after a PhD in Political Science in 2021). Her comments and findings here don’t reflect the views of the ESDC. Her post-doc paper with Anna Kopec, titled “Do Service-Providing Nonprofits Contribute to Democratic Inclusion? Analyzing Democracy Promotion by Canadian Homeless Shelters,” was published in 2023 in the .

Question: How did you come to research democracy-promoting activities in our sector?

Kristen Pue: The paper came out of research in 杏吧原创’s School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA) and was an extension of my PhD dissertation, which had looked at how governments acquire nonprofit organizations’ public services. The literature tends to divide nonprofits into two categories: (1) nonprofits that deliver social services and services that alleviate the symptoms of poverty; and (2) nonprofits that campaign, or promote democracy, or fulfill associational functions. But it struck me that, for organizations that are frontline service providers that serve some of our most vulnerable populations, like the unhoused, the potential to do both could be a powerful force for egalitarian democracy — and it didn’t seem like there was much research that put those two together.

Anna Kopec, Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration

My co-author, Anna Kopec, has a robust depth of knowledge about homelessness, and she and I wanted to understand to what extent service providers are providing democracy-promoting functions that we think are important about civil society and to what extent are they just focused on being homeless shelters that provide services and nothing beyond that. That was the idea behind the paper.

Q: What were the findings of the paper?

Pue: We found is that a lot of homeless shelters are involved in democracy-promoting functions in three areas. The first area promotes political participation — activities like acting as a polling station during an election or providing information about when an election occurs. The second category is what we call internal, democratic governance, such as having procedures within the nonprofit itself that incorporate participatory democracy — things like having meetings that involve clients, so that they can provide feedback. The third category is representative voice, which is about advocacy. So, for example, to what extent are homeless shelters acting as their clients’ representatives to governments and advocating for their clients’ needs? Also, to what extent are they including people with lived experiences directly in that advocacy?

With all three of those buckets, we found that homeless shelters in Canada are undertaking those roles. We also identified, in the paper, that there’s room for further action, but I was surprised, in a positive way, by the extent to which these organizations are advocating to address the root causes of homelessness — to prevent homelessness, to support inclusion, and to do other activities that would lead to the organization becoming obsolete. To me, this is great, because if you have a justice-promoting organization, it should be okay with solving the bigger problems and becoming obsolete.

Q: Globally, how does Canada compare in terms of housing and homelessness?

Pue: As a supplier of affordable housing, Canada lags behind other countries. We’re an outlier not only in terms of the typical comparators, like Sweden and Norway, but also compared to the UK and US, both of whom have more social housing, per capita, than Canada has. If you’re relying only on market housing, you’re never going to provide enough affordable housing for low-income people. If I were to put priority anywhere, it would be in social housing, as well as providing supportive housing for people who might need a hand because they aren’t able to pay over the short term.

A cascading series of problems, like climate change, the housing crisis and inflation, is resulting in more people who have full-time jobs still not being able to sustain the means of life. That makes the pathways out of homelessness a lot more challenging — and we may see things get worse if effort isn’t put into addressing underlying problems. Really, the solution isn’t complicated: you house people in affordable housing.

Q: During the research related to housing and homelessness, were there any democracy-promoting activities that stood out?

Pue: The work of , got me excited. The way they frame the role of the people they serve — referring to them as “members” rather than “service users” and “clients” for instance — is inclusive and highlights what we want, ideally, in terms of the relationship between members and shelters. They’re members who have rights and agency.

Medicine Hat, AB

Also, Medicine Hat, in Alberta, successfully ended homelessness, although I’m not sure if they’ve been able to sustain that. They took a housing-first approach because there was adequate political will. A housing-first approach seems to be the most effective approach in that you house somebody first and you don’t worry about the underlying causes of their homelessness, because meeting that basic need gives them a lot more space to be able to deal with whatever other problems that are in their life.

Camp Pekiwewin

And there have been a couple of social movements that have popped up in Canada that have been helpful in promoting democracy and participation among the unhoused.

An example was , a tent city in Edmonton. , but for a considerable time (three months), they were a promising space for cross-class, political engagement in which you had social-justice organizers and unhoused populations in an environment where needs were being met.

Tent cities are a sign of a problem, but in an absence of affordable housing, that was a space where people were able to show their cross-class solidarity — and people were able to interact with one another in a way that promoted class consciousness and promoted a sense of agency that’s often lacking when you’re talking about marginalized populations.

I do think that democracy-promoting initiatives like that are helpful, and nonprofits can play a role in supporting them, because the volunteers and staff of those organizations are oftentimes the people who go to those initiatives — and the nonprofits themselves could have a more formal role.

Kristen Pue is on . Anna Kopec is on as well.

Disruption. Transformation. Reinvention. These lie ahead for Canada鈥檚 charitable and nonprofit sector. This sector must drive change for those it serves. And, it must help governments find and implement solutions to a growing number of complex issues. It is not the time for the sector to be passive, reactive or uncoordinated (if it ever was the time). Driving change requires a more powerful, more inclusive, more effective policy presence as the 鈥榮ector鈥� that has a collective mission to enhance the well-being of all Canadians.

A strong has been made that a 鈥榟ome鈥� in government 鈥� a dedicated Minister, agency or unit 鈥� is the route to being taken more seriously in public policy. This is only a partial answer. First, the sector must grow its own infrastructure. It must coordinate and use its collective power: provide an efficient two-way conduit for engagement between governments and the sector鈥檚 diverse components; identify shared issues and policy solutions; and amplify, centre and enhance the voices of equity-seeking groups. Without sector-wide coordination, government officials tend to throw up their hands, and claim that there are too many representatives asking for different things, which is (and has been) a sure way for the sector to be ignored.

Stronger policy infrastructure in other countries

Charities in other countries have created stronger policy infrastructure for themselves in recent years. In Australia 19 large national organizations came together to form a Charities Crisis Cabinet in early 2020 to give a policy voice to the sector during the pandemic, and to help charities support their communities, 鈥渆specially those most vulnerable to increased harm.鈥� The Crisis Cabinet had considerable successes, including a JobKeeper program during COVID, supports for digital transformation, commitment to a national strategy on volunteering and, with a change in government, a federal minister for charities. With an end to the pandemic in sight and a much more positive relationship with government, the Crisis Cabinet disbanded in September 2022.

In the UK, 55 organizations formed the Civil Society Group in November 2021 to increase collaboration and communication among charities, improve relationships with government and ensure better outcomes for communities. The Civil Society Group itself as being 鈥渁n organization that isn’t an organization.鈥� Rather, it the 鈥渃ollectives strengths of diverse charities鈥� and makes 鈥�, not just something that happens in times of crisis.鈥� It does not aim to be the sole representative policy voice for the sector or supplant the work of other infrastructure organizations, but instead to amplify and accelerate influence on policy makers. Participation is open to any interested organization and is already quite diverse, which has nevertheless produced agreement on .

Why is there so little coordinated action in Canada?

How might Canada鈥檚 charitable sector strengthen its ability to collaborate and affect public policy? With the sense of urgency in this transformational period, the and the commissioned my research team to help start conversations about a new cross-sector leadership vehicle. We produced a background paper on cross-sector leadership models and conducted interviews (N= 41) with a wide range of sector leaders, summarized as a second report.

There was general consensus among interviewees that leadership across the sector could be strengthened, although there are differing assessments of how best to do this. There is no appetite for a new organization, as a formal incorporated entity, that would take the place of existing infrastructure organizations. Rather, three potential structures 鈥� all of which would provide meaningful engagement with justice and equity-seeking groups 鈥� were identified:

• A coalition/network that works as a 鈥榥etwork of networks鈥� to bring together existing organizations across subsectors, including equity-seeking groups, and that collectively advocates on cross-sector issues;
• A policy advocacy shop that is a small, purpose-built entity focused solely on advancing policy engagement for the sector, mainly at the federal level; and
• A participatory forum that first aims to deepen understanding of the issues within the sector through meaningful, inclusive dialogue, and then gets these perspectives reflected in advocacy work being done on behalf of the sector.

We heard that how a new mechanism is formed, and who leads the process, will affect its legitimacy and the willingness of others to come on board. There was a clear sense that the catalyst should not be a single organization, as this does not instill confidence that the new mechanism would not be controlled by it (whether by design or inadvertently).

Banner photo of Parliament is courtesy of Shubham Sharan.

Featuring 36 chapters by 52 academics and sector leaders, the e-book is freely available at . You can access individual chapters or the full, 680-page e-book, all of it published under a Creative Commons licence, which allows free, non-commercial use.

Read a review of the book:

鈥淭his is an amazing new resource for those studying or interested in Canada鈥檚 voluntary sector,鈥� Dr. Susan Phillips says. 鈥淭he authors have explored topics ranging from fundraising to governance, the sector鈥檚 history to its work in effecting public policy.鈥�