Charity Canada
Where our charity data comes from
Please know: Directory figures on Charity Member come from CRA Charities Listings / T3010 public data. Charity Member is not the Canada Revenue Agency. The Member Trust Score is a transparency indicator we calculate from that public data — it is not an official CRA grade, endorsement, or financial advice.
Staff set a site-wide data as-of date after each CRA/Open Data refresh. Until then, treat profile figures as from our last import and confirm on CRA.
1. Official places to check or obtain the same public data
Anyone can look up a charity or request the underlying public extracts. We use the same family of CRA sources:
- CRA List of charities search — confirm registration status, contact details, and recent T3010 figures for any business number (BN).
- How to get information about a charity — CRA guidance on searching the List of charities and requesting bulk or older T3010 data.
- Request publicly available Charities Listings data (CSV) — CRA form for electronic List of charities and selected T3010 fields. Requests are processed first-come, first-served; CRA notes most take at least six business days.
- 2024 List of charities — Open Government Portal — downloadable identification, directors, programs, financial (Schedule 6), and related public CSVs.
2. What the CRA makes available (and what we use)
The CRA request form lets you choose criteria (such as designation and category) and a type of data. Charity Member is built around these public options:
Types of data from the CRA form
| CRA form option | What it includes (public) | On Charity Member |
|---|---|---|
| List of charities | Registration number, effective date of status, designation, category, names, address, contact, email, website (if available) | Directory search, category browse, profile header |
| Basic contact information (information return) | Contact block from the registered charity information return | Contact section on the charity profile |
| Registered charity information return (Form T3010) | Public T3010 sections selected for the extract (directors, programs, finances, and related) | See the detailed table below |
| List of RCAAAs | Registration number, effective date, names, and address only | Not part of our core charity directory today |
Public T3010 / listings fields we surface today
| Public CRA information | How it appears on this site |
|---|---|
| Identification / list — BN, name, status, designation, category, address | Search, category pages, profile header |
| Basic contact / web URL | Contact block on the charity profile |
| Directors / like officials | Directors table on the profile; director search |
| Programs / activities description | Programs text on the charity profile |
| Financial information / Schedule 6 (revenue & expenditures) | Financial snapshot on the profile; also used as input to the Member Trust Score |
| Category / subcategory codes | Home groups and category listing pages |
| How complete those public fields are in our import | Member Trust Score — transparency indicator only, not a CRA rating |
Criteria the CRA and directories often use
Extracts can be filtered by geography, designation (structure/funding), category (purposes/activities), and registration status. Our public directory focuses on registered charities and is especially useful for Ontario discovery, while profiles may include charities across Canada depending on the last import cycle.
3. Extended public data
Now supported when imported:
-
Website / web URL extracts — used to enrich empty profile website fields
(Open Data
weburlCSV via ops import).
These public datasets exist on the CRA request form / Open Government Portal but are not shown on profiles yet:
- Qualified / non-qualified donees (who a charity funds)
- Activities outside Canada (Schedule 2)
- Compensation bands (Schedule 3)
- Disbursement quota (Schedule 8)
- Foundations Schedule 1 details
For those details now, use the official CRA List of charities search for the charity’s BN.
4. How the Member Trust Score uses this data
The Trust Score looks at how complete and transparent a charity’s public CRA-derived profile is in our database (registration health, profile fields, finance rows, directors, contact). It does not replace CRA status, and it is never sold as a pay-to-win grade.
Read the Trust Score methodology (weights, letter grades, and disclaimers).
5. Always verify on CRA before you decide
Before donating or relying on any figure, open the charity’s official CRA details using the registration number (BN) on the profile. Our import can lag behind the latest filing.
Search charities Trust Score methodology CRA List of charities