Interpreting the Government Info for Canadian Charities
Registered Charity Information Return (T3010)
Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) provides information for donors on its website including:
- how to research registered charities using the CRA Charities Listing;
- tax savings;
- donation receipts;
- the regulation of charities; and
- how to avoid fraud.
You can reach the site by going to www.cra.gc.ca/charitiesandgiving.
To find a charity
To find the charity you are looking for, enter its name in CRA's search form. You can put the full name in or as much of it as you know. (Another way to search is by the charity’s registration or business number if you have it.) Select ‘search’ and one or more charities that match will show up on a list. Pick the specific one you are researching and proceed. You will be taken to a page for that charity. Find "Registered Charity Information Return: T3010 Return" and click on it. Pick the most recent year and click on it. You are now at the T3010.
If the charity is not listed, it either is not registered or it may have had its registration revoked by CRA. To verify, you can go back to the basic search and click "Canadian Revoked Charities" or call CRA at 1-800-267-2384 and ask if it is registered.
Go to CRA's charity search page
Here are some hints about what to look at:
Section B
You can see the names of the directors, their position in the charity and whether or not they are related to any other board members (arm's length) elsewhere on the form. Under "Arm's Length", the answer should be "Yes" for the majority of board members. To be effective, the board should be independent of the charity's management and each other.
Section C
If you are not familiar with what the charity does, a brief summary will appear here. It will also indicate if the charity had activities outside Canada.
If you feel you have been pressured by a fund raiser, question C9 (T3010A) or C7 (T3010B) will tell whether the charity provides incentives for their fund raisers (i.e. the more they raise, the more the fund raiser is paid). This is not considered ethical by CCCC standards.
C3 will tell if the charity gave funds to another charity. This is common for some charities and you can view which organizations they sent funds to on the Qualified Donees worksheet.
C9 indicates if there are paid staff. Schedule 3 will contain additional salary information. This schedule provides the salary range of the highest paid employees, the number of staff and if directors were paid. The answer to C8 should be ‘no’, or the charity may be contravening the law.
Section D and Schedule 6
This section provides financial detail. Many people focus on lines 5010 and 5020 and try to determine if the charity is "efficient", but these lines do not tell the whole story. A better question might be: Given the size of the organization (line 4700-total revenue) and what it is trying to accomplish (Section C) is the amount spent on administration appropriate? A higher amount may mean well managed and a lower amount may mean under resourced.
Here is a quick way to see how they are doing. We have a calculator on this page that you can plug these numbers into. Click on "Calculate" and you will get an approximation of what percentage of expenditures goes to charitable works.
Sections F and G
Provides additional information if applicable.
The CCCC Seal of Accountability indicates that a charity adheres to high standards. Look for the Seal of Accountability when making decisions about which Christian charities to support.
