Policy priority: Paid and Unpaid Labour
The nonprofit sector employs 2.5 million individuals and benefits from the contributions of 13 million volunteers. However, we're facing volunteer and employment challenges that jeopardize the sector's work.
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A staggering 55% of nonprofits have no paid staff, and many organizations with paid staff also benefit from volunteer contributions.
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Our workforce is 70% women and 33% of racialized people. Our workforce is better educated and older than economy-wide averages.
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The average annual salary for those working in community nonprofits was $43,020 in 2021, compared to $62,581 in the economy overall. Much of the work in the sector is precarious, short-term and doesn’t include benefits.
That the federal government:
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Co-develop a Labour Force Strategy for the nonprofit sector to recruit and retain workers to futureproof and support a strong economy.
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Implement the four recommendations of the Coalition of National Service Federations
Intersections with other policy priorities
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Making federal funding more equitable and effective: The prevalence of short-term project funding and underfunding leads to low wages, few benefits and precarious work for our diverse workforce. Our funding policy recommendations would deliver concrete improvements to the quality of employment in the sector.
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Building the digital capacity of the sector: Digital technologies have the potential to transform the nonprofit sector and its workforce. The nonprofit sector may face challenges adapting to the new skillsets demanded by digital technologies, potentially leading to skill mismatches that could disproportionately affect certain segments of the workforce.
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Data for effective decision making: The sector lacks critical labour market data on both charities and nonprofits, leading to an inability to conduct labour force planning and understand basic facts related to workforce composition, skills and compensation. Imagine Canada and the Federal Nonprofit Data Coalition are advocating for more and better nonprofit sector labour market information.
Imagine Canada, 2023
Imagine Canada, 2023
Impact Organizations of Nova Scotia, 2023
Equitable Recovery Collective, 2023
Imagine Canada, 2025
Ontario Nonprofit Network, 2022
Ontario Nonprofit Network, 2018
Imagine Canada, 2017
With less than 1% of Canadian charities and nonprofits having paid staff for human resources, organizations are struggling to compete in a super-charged labour market. Created by and for the sector, Imagine Canada's HR Intervals strives to bridge this gap through its comprehensive, bilingual online knowledge base. HR Intervals was established to help nonprofit managers, employees and board members better understand, address, and guide people management within their organizations.