The Diversity Assessment Tool App: Advancing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Canada’s Non-profit Sector

Canada’s non-profit sector is one of the country’s largest employers and one of the least studied workplaces. In 2024, the sector employed about 2.87 million people and generated $244.2 billion in gross domestic product, with health, education, and social services accounting for nearly 87% of that output. Its workforce is majority women and draws substantially on immigrants, racialized and Indigenous labour. However, representation of  Indigenous Peoples and equity-deserving groups in senior or leadership roles is disproportionate and uneven across diverse groups. Women hold 56.3% of senior management positions in the sector but only 47.9% of board seats, while racialized people hold roughly 10% of senior management roles and 9.4% of board seats, despite representing a far larger share of the sector’s workforce.

Non-profits are motivated to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). However, the sector is operating under sustained strain. Demand for services, job satisfaction, and turnover remain concerns. According to the Charity Insights Canada Project, 80% of Canadian charities reported  actively pursuing EDI initiatives in 2023.A comparison of the 2023 and 2024 annual surveys also showed that the turnover rate climbed from 27% in 2023 to 39% in 2024. Non-profit organizations are, in short, navigating rising external demands and internal equity gaps, with shrinking capacity to manage either.

Four patterns emerge from these results, and together they explain where the sector excels and where it can improve:

• Commitment consistently outpaces infrastructure, resources, and capacity.
• Formalization tracks organizational scale.
• Recruitment methods have outpaced progression.
• External practice is ahead of internal machinery.

Download the full report to read the complete findings and recommendations.