The Canadian charity sector is a vital part of Canadian society and economy, with revenue of over $342 billion and expenditures of about $334 billion.

We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2022 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project to create the Blumbergs Canadian Charity Sector Snapshot 2022. The database covers about 84,173 of the approximately 86,000 registered charities in Canada that had filed their T3010 and were processed into CRA’s Charity Listing database by February 2024.

Highlights of the Blumbergs Canadian Charity Sector Snapshot 2022 include:

• 84,173 registered charities filed their T3010 in Canada out of approximately 86,000 charities
• $342 billion in total revenue for Canadian charities and total expenditures of $334 billion.
• Government revenue totaled $240.5 billion including from the federal government ($12.4 billion), provincial governments ($216 billion), and municipal/regional governments ($12.1 billion). In total government funding is approximately 70% of the revenue of the whole charity sector.
• 78,443 identified themselves as active and 3,857 as inactive
• 30,037 made gifts to other charities or qualified donees during their 2022 fiscal year
• Canadian charities spent over $4.6 billion outside of Canada
• 143 Canadian charities received funds from Global Affairs Canada for foreign activities
• 2,877 identified having contractual relationships with foreign intermediaries, 1,016 charities identified that employees conducted activities outside of Canada and 2,053 had volunteers conducting foreign activities.
• $3.3 billion was received by Canadian charities from outside of Canada
• In 2019, 791 identified carrying on political activities but these questions have now been removed and there is no transparency about Canadian charities and political activities.
• 43,629 identified having employment expenses while 40,152 did not have any employment expenses
• $192.7 billion was spent by Canadian charities on salaries and other compensation expenditures
• $22 billion in official donation receipts were issued by Canadian registered charities

Read the full article here.

The Sean Blumberg Transparency Project is in memory of my youngest brother Sean Blumberg. Sean was a sweet, kind person, a great brother who helped me on a number of occasions with many tasks including the time-consuming and arduous task of reviewing T3010 databases and making them into something useful. As part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project, Blumbergs has been releasing information on the Canadian charity sector to provide a better understanding of the size, scope, complexity, and challenges of the sector.

CanadianCharityLaw.ca is a website and blog of the law firm Blumbergs Professional Corporation (Blumbergs) based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Blumbergs provides legal services and advice to Canadian non-profits and registered charities, and foreign groups interested in operating in Canada.