Imagine Canada’s recommendations for Budget 2023 underline the nonprofit sector’s critical role. Our recommendations fall within three key themes:  enabling a more sustainable funding environment, strengthening the government’s relationship with the nonprofit sector and gathering data and building sector strategies. If the recommendations resonate, feel free to adopt them into your own pre-budget submission or policy work.

The Nonprofit Federal Data Working Group has submitted recommendations to the federal pre-budget consultation process, focused on collaboration between the sector and Statistics Canada, collecting more and better data about the sector, and ensuring the data collected is presented in easily accessible and understood formats. Check out the submission to learn more about the group and our 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.

Government partners with community organizations to deliver crucial programs, but the way it funds these initiatives is burdensome, inefficient, and fails to cover the full cost of service delivery.

Nonprofits are playing a crucial role during the COVID-19 crisis, but many are facing financial losses and increased demand. They need support so they can continue to provide key programs and services.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.