{"id":7256,"date":"2023-09-25T14:54:01","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T18:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/panl\/?p=7256"},"modified":"2023-09-26T20:07:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T00:07:32","slug":"cathy-barr-interview-about-data-centre-and-statistics-canada-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/panl\/2023\/cathy-barr-interview-about-data-centre-and-statistics-canada-survey\/","title":{"rendered":"“Statistics Canada is going to do another full-scale survey of charities and nonprofits \u2014 and they haven\u2019t done that since 2003.” –Cathy Barr"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CathyCathy Barr<\/a> is Vice-President of Research and Strategic Relationships for Imagine Canada<\/a>, which works to strengthen Canadian charities and nonprofits so they can better serve individuals and communities. Over the past twenty years, Barr has led dozens of data, research, and knowledge mobilization projects focused on Canada\u2019s charitable and nonprofit sector. She has a PhD in Political Science from York University and is also an advisor with the Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience<\/a>. She spoke with PANL Perspectives<\/em><\/a> about Imagine\u2019s work related to data and a new Data Centre in Canada. The interview has been shortened and edited.<\/p>\n

Question: You talk about different types of data. What are they? What data, specifically, is needed?<\/h2>\n

\"\"Barr<\/strong>: The way Imagine Canada looks at it, the way I look at it, we need more data about the charitable and nonprofit sector, or about social-purpose organizations. We\u2019re interested in the universe of organizations that are non-governmental and that are not for-profit businesses. They\u2019re a third sector and they’re an important part of Canadian society and Canada\u2019s economy. The third sector represents more than 8% of the country\u2019s GDP, and it delivers services to Canadians across the country.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, because of all the services provided by the sector and the money flowing from governments and the private sector, we need to know more about where the money is going in the third sector, and what\u2019s being done with it \u2014 and government needs good data to make good decisions about the sector.<\/p>\n

A lot of people, including me, believe that for government to pay more attention to our sector, we have to be able to demonstrate more about who we are and what we do — and for that, we need data. We’re kind of invisible as a sector.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\""Does<\/a>

In another article of our Data series, Shawn Bunsee, Vice President of Data & Analytics and Chief Privacy Officer at CanadaHelps until 2022, explains how the nonprofit sector needs to mature when it comes to data issues: “Does Our Sector Lack a Culture of Data-Driven Decision-Making?”<\/p><\/div>\n

Organizations in the sector need data about the issues they\u2019re focused on. So, we need data about housing, or childcare, or healthcare services, or the environment. My interest is in data related to the sector, but tangentially, I\u2019m also aware that we need that other type of data, too. Frankly, there\u2019s more data about these topics, but organizations don\u2019t always know about it, so there\u2019s a job to be done to make that data more visible.<\/p>\n

Q: Is there also a huge gap in data about underserved or marginalized communities?<\/h2>\n

Barr<\/strong>: There’s an enormous gap in data about the nonprofit sector in general \u2013 we don’t even know how many nonprofit organizations exist in Canada \u2014 but the lack of knowledge and data about underserved populations and equity-seeking groups is also tremendous.<\/p>\n