Last week, I analyzed national data on not-for-profit, non-governmental organizations in the arts, heritage, and entertainment.

Today’s post examines provincial and territorial data on the number of organizations, their revenues, and their employed staff, as well as the rural / urban proportions for each indicator. This analysis provides interesting facts about the size and structure of the broader not-for-profit arts sector in each province and territory. At least, I hope so!

Not-for-profit organizations in Statistics Canada’s Business Register are included in the dataset, whether or not they have charitable status. The only condition is that “they reported either revenues, number of employees, or both for 2019”. (Source: Metadata and User Guide for Rural Canada Non-Profits Database 2019.)

The dataset includes 131,570 not-for-profit organizations, which garnered $311 billion in revenues and employed 3.6 million people in 2019. The data pre-date the pandemic. Clearly, some organizations may have folded since 2019, while others may have been established.

Canada has over 8,000 not-for-profit organizations in the arts, heritage, and entertainment, with nearly $8 billion in revenues and 150,000 employees

The 8,444 not-for-profit organizations in the arts, heritage, and entertainment generated $7.7 billion in revenues and employed 150,000 people. The dataset does not provide a breakdown by type of arts, heritage, and entertainment organization. (The term “arts, heritage, and entertainment” is defined in the notes at the bottom of this post.)

28% of the arts, heritage, and entertainment organizations are in rural areas of the country, compared with 16% of Canada’s population. Organizations were classified as rural if they are located outside of Census Metropolitan Areas or Census Agglomerations (i.e., regions with core cities that have a population of at least 10,000).

Many differences between the provinces and territories