Non-profits and charities in Canada are receiving a lot of stakeholder scrutiny. Increasingly, funders, the media and the public are going beyond legal compliance and criticizing charities and non-profits for questionable governance practices and actions that don’t meet voluntary guidelines or ethical standards. Stakeholders are expecting more transparency and accountability.
We help organizations change their governing documents (such as articles and by-laws) and their governance practices. We educate boards on their fiduciary duties and understanding of legal compliance. We assist with creating or revising policies and procedures to help with compliance.
With the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act (CNCA) and the Ontario Not-for-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA) almost all non-profits and charities in Ontario (and many outside of Ontario) will have made governance changes or will need to make changes. The CNCA affects over 25,000 Federal non-profit corporations and ONCA will affect over 50,000 Ontario non-profit corporations. The corporate changes provide an important opportunity for non-profits and charities to take stock of their governance practices and policies and make changes as necessary. If you wish to retain our law firm to assist with your charity application, you can contact us.
Governance top resources:
Should We Establish a Canadian Social Enterprise, Non-Profit or Charity and How to Do It? (online course for Canadian groups)
Fundraising from Canada – A course for groups outside of Canada (online course for foreign groups)
Should Our Canadian Business Establish a Corporate Foundation?
Fundamentals of Running a Canadian Charitable Organization/Operating Charity (online course)
Fundamentals of Running a Private or Public Foundation in Canada (online course)
Membership of Non-Profits and Charities in Canada (online course)
Multiple Corporate Structures for Canadian For-Profits, Non-Profits and Charities to Enhance Flexibility + Impact (online course)
Running and Maintaining a Federal Non-Profit Corporation under the CNCA – An Introduction (online course)
Separation and Independence by Canadian Charities from Entities that are not Canadian Charities (online course)
Should you agree to be a director or board member of a Canadian non-profit or registered charity? (online course)
I was very pleased to see Gabe Oatley from the Future of Good interviewing Sharmila Khare, the Director General of the Charities Directorate. This took place on March 22, 2023, and you can find the full interview here. I sure…
The Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson has just released a report “Charity Begins with Fairness: More to Explore on March 27, 2023. It is a fairly lengthy report that provides a lot of background and information on the Office of…
As an update to our recent article providing Hockey Canada’s full audited financial statements for 2014 – 2021, we recently received an Access To Information and Privacy (ATIP) package containing Hockey Canada’s financial statements, including financial statements filed with the…
Corporations Canada has changed their database such that when you are ordering documents from Corporations Canada on a Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (“CNCA”) corporation, you can order financial statements in addition to other governance and filings of CNCA corporations. Here…
We have blogged about the Canadian Soccer Association and its failure to do its correct filings here Canadian Soccer Association not filing financial statements with Corporations Canada as required by the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (“CNCA”). Now six weeks after…
Here is our article 2023 Canadian Federal Budget and its impact on the Canadian charitable sector. Today, Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland introduced Budget 2023—A Made-in-Canada Plan: Strong Middle Class, Affordable Economy, Healthy Future for the Liberal Government of Justin…
Corporations Canada will begin issuing to Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (“CNCA”) non-profit corporations Notices of Intent to Dissolve if the CNCA non-profit corporations have not filed their corporate Form 4022 – Annual Return (“Annual Return’) in three years in a…
We recently reviewed: How much did the largest Canadian private foundations spend in 2021 on charitable activities or gifts to qualified donees according to their T3010 filings. We also noted the amount expended on charitable activities and gifts to qualified donees…
Here is the Blumbergs Canadian Charity Sector Snapshot 2021. We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2021 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project. The database covers about 83,771 of the approximately 86,000 registered charities…
Many Canadian charities have been quite adept at using social media. It provides an opportunity for them to publicize their cause, fundraise and connect with people. It generally also has quite a low cost. Twitter has increasingly become a problematic…
The US government has proposed a change to how grants from a private foundation to a DAF are treated. Here is the summary of what is being proposed: The proposal would clarify that a distribution by a private foundation to…
Today, the Federal government introduced a new Bill C-41, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. This bill would make a change to the Criminal code and its anti-terrorism provisions and if an…
Just read this article from the Globe and Mail entitled “Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation returning donation with link to China“. The first paragraph states: A non-profit foundation dedicated to the memory of Pierre Elliott Trudeau is returning a large financial…
The Federal Court of Appeal dismissed a request by Human Concern International to postpone the suspension that CRA had imposed upon them. Then Human Concern International made a leave to appeal application to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court…
A Saskatoon charity that provides supportive living assistance to vulnerable populations has had a number of governance problems over the last few years and has been in and out of court over various issues. It is now in the news…
I just took a look at the Corporations Canada corporate profile for the Canadian Soccer Association. (PDF for Canadian Soccer Association corporate profile report) The Canadian Soccer Association is not filing financial statements with Corporations Canada as required by the…
If you are a Federal non-profit corporation under the CNCA, then you can search your organization’s corporate profile at Search for A Federal Corporation. It will show you what documents have been filed with Corporations Canada. At the same place,…
The many failures of governance and compliance with Hockey Canada has raised the profile of transparency and accountability in the non-profit and charity sector. The Sprott Business School has put out further reports that some may find interesting. Brouard, F.,…
The CBC recently covered the issue of fundraising costs by Canadian charities in an article “For every dollar donated to CNIB’s ‘urgent’ guide dog campaign, it spends 52 cents on fundraising“. If you want to read CRA’s guidance on fundraising,…
The new Qualifying Disbursement rules will give some charities (with certain objects) some more flexibility when dealing with non-qualified donees in Canada and outside of Canada. At the same time, the anti-avoidance provision passed at the same time will make…
I am delighted to be doing my third webinar for Blackbaud’s True North Webinar Series. Here are the details: Compliance and Receipting for Canadian Charities Thursday, January 26 at 1:00 p.m. ET Legal compliance is important for all Canadian organizations.…
We recently reviewed for 2018, 2019 and 2020 how much the largest 500 Canadian private foundations spent on charitable activities or gifts to qualified donees according to their T3010 filings. We also noted the amount expended on charitable activities and…
As many know, there were changes to the disbursement quota announced/proposed in the April 7, 2022, Federal Budget. Finance released draft changes on August 9, 2022, which showed that they were basically increasing the DQ from 3.5% on assets over…
As we have noted before in our blog on November 28, 2022, entitled Statement by the Canada’s Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson on CRA examination will be significantly hindered by the confidentiality provisions of the ITA relating to charities, Canada’s Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson will…