Nonprofits make play vital role in Ontario.

"The nonprofit and voluntary sector is a vital contributor to our social and economic quality of life in Ontario," state the authors of the report, The Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector in Ontario: Regional Highlights from the National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations.

The report compares and contrasts the situation of the sector in Ontario with the rest of Canada. It indicates that Ontario's nonprofit and voluntary organizations:

* employed nearly one million people in Ontario, 15% of the active work force in 2003;

* generated annual revenues of $47.7 billion in the same year, 43% of revenues of all organizations across Canada;

* were operating over 45,000 organizations in 2003, 369 organizations per 100,000 populations.

While most nonprofit and voluntary organizations in Canada serve their local communities, Ontario has a relatively large share of organizations with a national and international reach.

The two largest areas of activity are religion (23% of organizations) and sports and recreation (16% of organizations). The province has proportionally fewer sports and recreation groups compared to the average for Canada. Ontario has a larger share of religion groups and organizations involved in grant-making, fundraising and voluntarism promotion than the Canadian average.

Hospitals, Universities and Colleges has less than 1% of all organizations in the province and have received 38% of all sector revenues in 2003. Ontario has a comparatively large number of organizations in the top revenue bracket compared to other regions combined, including many in Hospitals, Universities and Colleges (38 versus 33%). Large organizations, dependent on government funding such as hospitals, universities and colleges, health or social services, are most likely to report problems across a range of areas, despite their positive revenue growth and reported increases in both volunteers and paid staff.

Governments were the largest single source of revenue for Ontario nonprofit and voluntary organizations, providing just under half (45%) of all revenues received. Earned revenues (36%) and donations and gifts (15%) were much smaller sources of revenue for organizations in Ontario.

The majority of organizations report problems with acquiring adequate resources, whether human or financial. They are concerned about their capacity having an impact on a changing social, political and economic environment. Organizations of all types reported significant human resources concerns, affecting the ability to retain paid staff and to recruit the types of suitable volunteers.

The staff of two organizations, Canadian Council on Social Development (Katherine Scott, Spyridoula Tsoukalas, Paul Roberts) and Imagine (David Lasby), prepared the report.

www.ccsd.ca/pubs