Tuesday, September 28, 2004

SPOTLIGHT: Voluntary sector

Ties to the community

NON-PROFIT and voluntary organizations have a major impact on Canadians, touching on virtually every aspect of their life.

In 2003, about 161,000 non-profit and voluntary organizations were operating across the country in a wide variety of areas.

About one-fifth of organizations operated in the area of sports and recreation and another fifth in religion, the two largest categories.

In 2003, Canadians took out a total of 139 million memberships in non-profit and voluntary organizations, an average of four per person. One of the hallmarks of these organizations is their connection to the community through the participation of individual citizens.

Individual Canadians gave generously to organizations, both in terms of money and time. In 2003, they donated more than $8 billion. Organizations reported a combined volunteer complement of more than 19 million who contributed more than 2 billion hours of volunteer time, or the equivalent of more than 1 million full-time jobs.

Nearly all non-profit and voluntary organizations make use of volunteers, and more than half rely solely on volunteers to fulfill their mission.

However, most volunteers are concentrated among a relatively small number of organizations. Almost three-quarters are engaged by the 6% of organizations that have volunteer complements of 200 or more.

Majority reported problems

A majority of those that participated in this study reported having problems fulfilling their missions and achieving their organization’s objectives.

Many appear to be reporting significant challenges in providing the public with all the benefits they have the potential to offer. Other challenges include recruiting volunteers and obtaining funding, both from individual donors and from other organizations, such as governments, foundations or corporations.

Non-profit and voluntary organizations posted $112 billion in revenues in 2003, making them a considerable presence in the economy.

One-third of these revenues were attributable to a relatively few hospitals, colleges and universities. However, the remaining organizations still reported revenues of $75 billion.

Clear divide

A clear divide is apparent between organizations that have relatively plentiful resources – revenues, paid staff and volunteers – and those that do not.

About 1% of Canadian nonprofit and voluntary organizations have annual revenues of $10 million or more. They account for 59% of all revenues.

In contrast, 42% of organizations have annual revenues of less than $30,000; they account for just 1% of all revenues. Less than 3% of organizations report having no revenues.

On the other side of the divide is a much larger group of small-revenue organizations. Just over one-half of all organizations are operated solely by volunteers, and nearly two-thirds report annual revenues of less than $100,000.

Overall, governments provide 49% of the funds that organizations receive, of which four-fifths comes from provincial governments.

You can read the full report “Cornerstones of the community: Highlights from the National Survey of Non-profit and Voluntary Organizations” on our website.

For more information, contact Client Services (1-877-679-2746), Small Business and Special Surveys Division.

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© 2004, Statistics Canada.