Canadian Foundation Facts

Canada has over 10,000 public and private foundations which collectively steward over $120 billion in assets. A core aspect of Canada’s charitable sector, foundations are independent legal entities operating solely for charitable purposes, working in partnership with the other 73,000 charities in Canada, and the many other non-profit and social-purpose organizations across society.

Their typical operating model is to endow assets, which are received as gifts, invest them in perpetuity, with earnings used to make grants or deliver their own charitable activities – or both. Foundation are an important aspect of civil society – an element vital to healthy democracies. Civil society informs, pushes, and compliments the important work of business and government, to keep communities dynamic and vital. The work is premised on the principles of agency and independence to ensure sole focus on the common good, free from private or partisan interests.

Donations from foundations totaling over $8 billion annually support a variety causes. From issues as distinct as childcare and the climate crisis, to decent work and diabetes, Canada’s foundations assist their partners on some of the most important issues of our time. They are increasingly also engaging in social finance and alternative investments, to intentionally put their assets to work for the betterment of society, in addition to their important granting and programming work.

There are three types of registered charities in Canada:

Private foundation
Public foundation or
Charitable organization

Canadian foundations are a diverse group of funders, dispersed across the country, that contribute close to $6 billion dollars to in grants annually.

To learn more about Canadian foundations:

Snapshot of Foundation Giving in Canada in 2018 and Trends 2013-2018, published November 2021
Assets and Giving of Canada’s Top Grantmaking Foundations, Snapshot 2013, published October 2015