By Don McRae.
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.
#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.
I’ve 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
| Charitable Category |
2022 | 2023 | Change |
| Agriculture | 94 | 90 | -4 |
| Animal Welfare | 1,044 | 1,059 | 15 |
| Arts | 2,692 | 2,681 | -11 |
| Canadian Amateur Athletic | 141 | 142 | 1 |
| Christianity | 26,134 | 25,881 | -253 |
| Community Resource | 4,910 | 4,906 | -4 |
| Complementary or Alternative Health Care | 137 | 141 | 4 |
| Core Health Care | 3,272 | 3,256 | -16 |
| Ecumenical and Inter-Faith Organizations | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Education in the Arts | 1,777 | 1,730 | -47 |
| Education Organizations not Elsewhere Categorized | 1,106 | 1,109 | 3 |
| Environment | 477 | 496 | 19 |
| Foundations | 8,684 | 8,681 | -3 |
| Foundations Advancing Education | 1,057 | 1,046 | -11 |
| Foundations Advancing Religions | 358 | 354 | -4 |
| Foundations Relieving Poverty | 20 | 25 | 5 |
| Health Care Products | 13 | 15 | 2 |
| Islam | 470 | 511 | 41 |
| Judaism | 391 | 398 | 7 |
| Organizations Relieving Poverty | 11,380 | 11,366 | -14 |
| Other Religions | 1,057 | 1,081 | 24 |
| Protective Health Care | 411 | 408 | -3 |
| Public Amenities | 6,394 | 6,356 | -38 |
| Relief of the Aged | 461 | 456 | -5 |
| Research | 236 | 256 | 20 |
| Support of Religion | 4,153 | 4,077 | -76 |
| Support of Schools and Education | 3,873 | 3,813 | -60 |
| Supportive Health Care | 2,099 | 2,092 | -7 |
| Teaching Institutions | 3,214 | 3,194 | -20 |
| Upholding Human Rights | 44 | 51 | 7 |
#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
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 LinkedIn.
Photos are courtesy of Karl Fredrickson, Ruth Gledhill, Piron Guillaume and Luke Chesser.
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Sunday, April 7, 2024 in Data Discoveries, Don McRae, For homepage, News & Events, Trends
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