Public Policy
A strong nonprofit sector helps communities thrive. Together with the sector, we advance federal public policy so that organizations are supported in achieving their missions.
Spotlight
Each year, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance invites Canadians to participate in their pre-budget consultation process. This year, the schedule is a bit different than usual due to the Spring election: individuals and organizations have until August 1 to submit their recommendations for a Fall 2025 budget. We’ve put together a toolkit to make participation easy.
As a new federal government begins its mandate, Imagine Canada is putting forward a clear roadmap to strengthen charities, nonprofits, and the communities they serve. Developed in collaboration with organizations across the country, our platform outlines key policy recommendations for the first 100 days—highlighting sector priorities in housing, affordability, mental health, climate action, labour, and nonprofit sector resilience.
Policy priorities
Charities and nonprofits have no federal entity responsible for the sector’s wellbeing or addressing systemic issues that impact it, despite being one of the three pillars of the Canadian economy.
A lack of economic, organizational and employment data on the nonprofit sector means that public policy, funding and organizational decision making is done without basic information.
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.
The federal government frequently relies on the sector to deliver crucial programs and services but its funding practices create inequities, inefficiencies and challenges for organizations as they work to deliver quality services to communities.
A more digitally enabled nonprofit and charitable sector will result in greater efficiency, communication and collaboration. To adequately serve the needs of society, the digital capacity of the sector must be enhanced.
Rules aimed at protecting public and charitable funds make it difficult for charities to partner with non-charities, resulting in equity-seeking communities having less access to these funds.
Registered charities are required to spend a certain percentage of their assets on charitable programs or on grants to other charities annually. This quota mainly impacts foundations.
Many charities and nonprofits engage in business activities in support of their missions, also known as social enterprise activity. However, they face barriers in pursuing these activities that for-profits do not.
Nonprofits played a crucial role during the COVID-19 crisis, but faced financial losses and increased demand. We advocated for support so they could continue to provide key programs and services.
Our networks
The charitable and nonprofit sector is incredibly vast and diverse, with a huge policy agenda to match. In order to represent the interests of the entire sector and advance solutions, we work in collaboration with a wide variety of partners and networks. This helps us create a bigger impact and to ensure that a wide range of diverse perspectives inform our public policy priorities and approaches. Below is a sample of some of the groups that collaborate with us:
- The Canadian Federation of Voluntary Sector Networks is a group of regional sector networks that comes together on a regular basis to discuss issues of shared interest.
- The Equitable Recovery Collective formed in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the nonprofit sector and the communities it serves. The Collective aims to advance an equitable recovery and a strong nonprofit sector.
- The Federal Nonprofit Data Coalition is a group with members from more than 40 organizations working together to improve federally collected and held data about the nonprofit sector.
- The Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience is working towards a digitally-enabled nonprofit sector, where Canada’s nonprofits use data and tech to advance their mission and multiply their impact.
- The People-Centred Economy Group brings together community economic development, co-operative, social economy, and nonprofit representative bodies to advance inclusive economies and strong communities.
- The Solidarity in the Social Economy Working Group works in solidarity to confront and mitigate apathy towards inclusion, diversity, equity and access in the social finance, social economy, co-operative and community economic development movements.
- Report: Working Better Together. In 2021/22, Imagine Canada commissioned consultant Yves Savoie to investigate the potential of building a national policy network.
RESOURCES
Parliamentary committee studies and government consultations are a great way for nonprofits to get involved in policy and legislation, raise awareness about issues, and connect with MPs.
