1. Research Agenda Measuring the Circle
Our Research Goals:
Describe the Indigenous charitable sector & and its funding economy
Compare to the core charitable sector (Canadian charities that are not universities, schools or hospitals)
Shape the future relationship between foundations and Indigenous communities
Marilyn Struthers, M. Struthers & Co. May 10, 2017

2. Measuring the Circle: 2016/17
National Data Project:
Five indicators of health of the Indigenous charitable sector & funders list
Partnered with Powered by Data
Framing Philanthropy:
An Analysis of the 2013 Indigenous Charitable Sector & Its Funding Economy, Klassen & MacNall
Partnered with Carleton University
Provincial Focus on Manitoba
First provincial examination, refines the key word list & takes a look at definition of “Indigenous Charity”
Partnered with UW Winnipeg & Community Foundation of Winnipeg

3. National Data Project
1,200 key word search of CRA charitable records to identifies “Indigenous-focused” charities
Pulls their public data from CRA financial records
Sorts to identify their charitable funders
Pulls public data from CRA financial records on funders

4. Charitable Funders of Indigenous-focused (I-f) Charities
I-f Charities represent about 1% or 983 of 8,983 Canadian charitable foundations funded in 2013
The average grant size to I-f charities about $1,000 less than for core charities
$16,648 I-f to $17,799 core
100 funders give 23+ grants to I-f charities
WE have a list!
More complete CRA records – so no comparison

5. 5 Indicators of Financial Health
Relative to the Core Charitable Sector
Are they keeping up?
Growth in numbers
Are they strong?
Revenue & value of the sector
% administrative expenditure &
rates of employment
Is there equity?
% of revenue from governments
Are they independent?
% revenue from gifts &
% revenue from fundraising
Are they where Indigenous people are?
Provincial distribution
WE have to find the story in the community to find out if these are the right Q’s – and in the data if these are the rightr measures:
Very perliminary…..

6. Are they keeping up? 2011: 823 Indigenous-focused charities 2013: 847
Consistent at 1% of the Canadian core charitable sector but…
2011
I-f charities grew slightly faster than other charities (12% compared to 9%) over the six years of the study between 2005 and 2011
2013
Between 2009 and 2013, the number of core charities increased very slightly (0.4%), I-f charities decreased (-0.3%)
The previous faster growth rate of I-f charities has not been sustained

7. Are they strong? Revenue overall
Revenue growth in I-f charities rose faster than core charities
Revenue increased 75% between those years compared to 44% in the revenue of core charities
Revenue growth for all charities slowed
I-f charities’ revenues rose more slowly than the core sector: 23% compared to a 27% increase in revenues of core charities
Revenue growth for all charities slowed but the earlier accelerated rate of revenue growth of I-f charities has fallen below that of the core charities

8. Are they strong? Value of the I-f charitable sector
2011
Value was $1.60B
2013
Value was $1.65B
More evidence of slowing revenue growth
I-f charities represented about 1.4% of all charity revenue in 2013 compared to 1.6% in 2011

9. Are they strong? % Admin expense of total revenue
2011
10% (about 2% less that core charities)
2013
12% (about 1% greater than core charities)
Improvement in administrative capacity

10. Are they strong? Employment rates
2011
I-f charities employed slightly fewer staff on average than the core charities
2013
I-f have a slightly higher rates of employment than core charities
Almost 12,800 (12,000 in 2011) people are employed full-time and 26,100 (8,500 in 2011) people work part time in I-f charities

11. Are they strong? Employment rates
FTEs: I-f charities’ average FTE = 17 (16 in 2011)
Core charities’ average FTE= 15 (18 in 2011)
PTEs: I-f charities increase dramatically to an
average of 35 (11.5 in 2011)
Core charities increased to 20 (15 in 2011)
Employment is growing at a faster rate than core charities but largely in part-time employment

12. Is there equity?
Big problem with gifts

13. Are they independent?

14. Are they independent?

15. Are they where the people are
Are they where the people are? Measures of Distribution Aboriginal per Capita

16. Next steps
Build out the community of research partners to share the work and build a research community
Refine the conversation & methods
Replicate & refine provincial partner research
Evaluation of effort among the Declaration of Action Signatories