What kinds of organizations can I volunteer with or offer my skills to?
There are differences between charities, non-profit organizations, volunteer-run groups, and social enterprises and most, if not all, engage or involve volunteers. This is the good news! (There is no bad news.)
For simplicity’s sake, we’ll call these four types of organizations “volunteer-involving organizations” as there is no particular agreed upon phrase to refer them.
The legal and nuanced differences between different types of volunteer-involving organizations are many and to go into great detail would require hours of your time. If you are keen to read up on this in more detail, please see the links below.
For now, we provide a brief summary.
Volunteer-involving organizations rely on volunteers for their operations and sometimes their management. They offer a wide variety of volunteer opportunities for both long-term and short-term commitments.
When a volunteer-involving organization of any type is looking for volunteers, they often post a call or notification but you can also contact them and offer to volunteer with them — you can choose to pursue a volunteer opportunity based on your interests or skills, or offer your skills and abilities to a volunteer-involving organization.
Canada has a long tradition of relying on volunteer-involving organizations to address the needs and interests of its highly diverse population.
The differences between two of the types — charities and non-profits:
Registered charities and non-profit organizations (NPOs) both operate on a non-profit basis, however they are not the same.
A charitable organization is similar to a non-profit, but it has extra requirements on top of the non-profit requirements. All charities are typically non-profits working to serve the community, but not all non-profits are charities. Charities can issue donation receipts for income tax deductions to receive tax credits, and non-profits cannot.
Non-profit organizations
Non-profit organizations are associations, clubs, or societies that are not charities and are organized and operated exclusively for social welfare, civic improvement, pleasure, recreation, or any other purpose except profit.
Examples of a few types of non-profit organizations:
- social, recreational, or hobby groups (bridge clubs, curling clubs, and golf clubs)
- certain amateur sports organizations (hockey associations, baseball leagues, and soccer leagues)
- certain festival organizations (parades and seasonal celebrations)
Registered charities
Registered charities are charitable organizations, public foundations, or private foundations that are created and resident in Canada. They must use their resources for charitable activities and have charitable purposes that fall into one or more of the following categories:
- the relief of poverty
- the advancement of education
- the advancement of religion
- other purposes that benefit the community
Examples of registered charities:
- relief of poverty (food banks, soup kitchens, and low-cost housing units)
- advancement of education (colleges, universities, and research institutes)
- advancement of religion (places of worship and missionary organizations)
- purposes beneficial to the community (animal shelters, libraries, and volunteer fire departments)
A third type of organization are volunteer-led charities. They often have no paid staff and rely on volunteers to provide services and resources for their communities. Not to confuse you, but they are also often referred to as non-profit organizations or NPOs.
Volunteer-led charities are organizations that have a mission to help those in need. These charities are run by volunteers and donations from individuals who want to help out. Volunteers make up the majority of these organizations, so they are run by people who want to make a difference in the world.
A social enterprise, the fourth type of volunteer-involving organization, is a revenue-generating organization whose objective is to have a social impact. Definitions of social enterprise vary, but there is no unified definition in Canada. Social enterprises fall into a wide spectrum of business models.
A social enterprise does not have a specific corporate form. Social enterprises include “non-profit organizations” or “registered charities” who operate revenue-generating related businesses, and include organizations that operate as “for-profit” businesses with a social goal.
Social enterprises fall anywhere between a “charity operating a related business” and a “business corporation with social purpose.”
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Canada has one of the largest and most vibrant non-profit and voluntary sectors in the world. It encompasses “service delivery” organizations in areas such as health, education, social services, community development and housing, as well as those that serve “expressive” functions in arts and culture, religion, sports, recreation, civic advocacy, environmental protection, and through business, labour, and professional associations.
Now you know a bit more about the very large picture of what Canada’s volunteer-involving organizations are like.
Some of the information above comes from:
- a document “The Canadian Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector in Comparative Perspective” found HERE
- Government of Canada pages found HERE and HERE
- an article, “Top Volunteer-Led and Run Nonprofit Charities in Canada” found HERE
- Indeed found HERE
- For more on the legal take on the differences in Ontario you can look HERE.
