By Urshita Grover

Statistics Canada released its report on February 17, 2025 on data relating to non-profit organizations (“NPOs”) (which for purposes of its report include both not-for-profits and charities) located in rural and small town (“RST”) areas in Canada (the “Report”). The findings in the Report are sourced from the Rural Canada Non-Profits, 2022 database (the “Database”), which provides “information on the counts, revenue, employment and activities” of active NPOs in RST areas in Canada in 2022. The Database considers RST areas as those outside census metropolitan areas (“CMAs”) and census agglomerations (“CAs”), whereas those within CMAs and CAs are functional urban areas. Active NPOs in the Database are entities that operate for a purpose other than generating profit, were active for the full or partial duration of 2022, and reported revenues and/or employment for the 2022 reference year.

The Report showed that there was an overall increase in total revenues and employment by active NPOs in RST areas despite a decline in their numbers.

Canada had nearly 136,000 active NPOs in 2022, with over 29,000 of them based in RST areas, which accounted for just over one-fifth (21.3%) of the total NPOs nationwide. However, the number of NPOs in RST areas in Canada decreased by 1.9% from the previous year, with regions like British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Manitoba experiencing the largest decreases. In contrast, the territories and Newfoundland and Labrador saw modest increases in the number of active NPOs in RST areas.

The distribution of these organizations varied across Canada, with Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia accounting for over three-quarters of all NPOs in RST areas. Meanwhile, functional urban areas saw a small increase in the number of active NPOs, growing by 0.9% in 2022. Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and British Columbia were the main drivers of this growth in urban NPOs.

In terms of revenue, NPOs across Canada generated a total of $339 billion in 2022, with RST NPOs contributing nearly $28 billion, which represented 8.3% of the total revenue in 2022. This marked a 3.1% increase from the previous year. Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia accounted for the bulk of the revenue generated by rural NPOs. In functional urban areas, NPOs collectively generated $311 billion in revenue, with Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta contributing the majority of this total revenue of urban NPOs in 2022.

Employment within NPOs across Canada saw an overall increase of 6.1% in 2022, with the RST NPOs employing over 453,000 individuals. This sector experienced employment growth of 2.1%, with the most notable increases in Prince Edward Island, followed by Quebec and New Brunswick. Functional urban NPOs saw more substantial employment growth, with a 6.7% increase, and were particularly prominent in Quebec and New Brunswick.

The Report also examined common activities by NPOs, which have overall remained stable since 2019. The largest proportion of RST NPOs focused on religious activities (23.1%), followed by sports, recreation, and social clubs (17.7%) and social services (13.4%). In functional urban areas, sports and recreation groups took the lead at 25.8%, with religion (16.6%) and social services (14.4%) following closely behind.

​Read the February 2025 Charity & NFP Law Update