How does a charity stack up against its peers? Pick a CRA category and revenue band to see the full distribution across 8 key metrics.
Search any of 138,000+ Canadian charities and get a full trust score breakdown.
Search now →Charity benchmarks compare a nonprofit's financial performance against peer organizations in the same CRA category and revenue band. Instead of evaluating a charity in isolation, benchmarks show whether its program spending, reserves, compensation, and growth are typical — or outliers — relative to similar organizations.
CharityVerify calculates benchmarks from CRA T3010 filings submitted by 138,000+ Canadian registered charities. We group charities by their CRA designation (health, education, welfare, religion, etc.) and by annual revenue size, then compute percentile distributions across 8 key financial metrics.
The percentage of total expenditures directed to charitable programs. A higher ratio means more money reaches the mission. The CRA expects registered charities to dedicate a meaningful share of spending to charitable activities.
Management and general overhead as a share of total spending. Some admin costs are necessary for good governance, but unusually high ratios may indicate inefficiency. Context matters — a small charity may have higher admin ratios simply due to fixed costs.
Staff compensation relative to total expenditures. Service-delivery charities (hospitals, universities) naturally have higher compensation ratios than grant-making foundations. Benchmarks by category account for these structural differences.
How much the charity spends on fundraising as a percentage of revenue. Established charities with strong donor bases often have lower ratios, while newer organizations or those running capital campaigns may spend more.
The share of funds passed to other qualified donees (other registered charities). Intermediary organizations and foundations typically have high pass-through ratios, while direct-service charities pass through very little.
How many months the charity could continue operating using its current reserves. Too few reserves create vulnerability; too many may suggest funds are being accumulated rather than deployed. The right amount depends on the charity's size and mission.
Compound annual growth rate of revenue over available filing years. Positive growth suggests organizational health and expanding impact. Declining revenue may warrant investigation, though it could reflect a deliberate wind-down or completed capital campaign.
The highest compensation bracket reported on the T3010. CRA requires charities to disclose the number of employees in salary bands ($40K–$79K, $80K–$119K, $120K–$159K, etc.). This metric shows the peak bracket for each peer group.
Before making a major gift or grant, donors use benchmarks to verify that a charity's financial profile is reasonable for its size and sector. A health charity spending 40% on programs may look concerning — until you see the sector median is 45% for that revenue band.
Boards use peer benchmarks to set targets, evaluate organizational performance, and prepare for audits. Knowing where you stand relative to peers helps boards make informed decisions about reserves, compensation, and program investment.
Academic researchers studying the Canadian nonprofit sector use benchmark data to identify trends, compare subsectors, and analyze the financial health of the charitable sector over time. Journalists use it for investigative reporting and context.
Advisors conducting due diligence for high-net-worth clients use benchmarks to screen charities before recommending philanthropic allocations. The API enables integration with existing portfolio tools and client reporting workflows.
All benchmark data is available programmatically through the CharityVerify REST API. The /v1/benchmarks endpoint returns percentile distributions (p10 through p90) for any CRA category and revenue band combination.
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \ "https://charityverify.com/v1/benchmarks?category=0160&revenue_band=large"
{
"category": "0160",
"revenue_band": "large",
"tier": "pro",
"metrics": {
"program_ratio": { "p10": 0.52, "p25": 0.68, "p50": 0.79, "p75": 0.87, "p90": 0.94, "sample_size": 312 },
"reserves_months": { "p10": 1.2, "p25": 3.8, "p50": 8.4, "p75": 18.6, "p90": 42.1, "sample_size": 312 },
...
}
}
Every Pro account ($39/mo) includes 1,000 API requests. Higher-volume plans are available for organizations that need to benchmark at scale.
Read the full API documentation → | See pricing plans →
All data is sourced from CRA T3010 annual information returns filed by Canadian registered charities. These are public filings available through the Canada Revenue Agency. CharityVerify processes and standardizes this data to compute comparable metrics across 138,000+ organizations.
Charities are grouped by two dimensions: CRA category (the designation code assigned by CRA, such as 0160 for Health or 0070 for Education) and revenue band (micro under $100K, small $100K–$500K, medium $500K–$5M, large $5M–$25M, or major over $25M). This ensures you're comparing organizations of similar type and scale.
Percentile values show the distribution of a metric across all charities in the group. The p50 (median) means half of charities are above and half below that value. The p10 represents the bottom 10th percentile, while p90 represents the top. This gives a complete picture of what's typical versus unusual.
Yes. Free users see the sector median (p50) for every metric. To see the full distribution (p10 through p90), upgrade to a Pro account. Pro accounts include 1,000 monthly API requests for programmatic access to the same data.
Benchmark data is recalculated whenever new CRA filings are processed. CharityVerify runs daily data collection and quarterly deep syncs to capture the latest T3010 filings as they become available.
Yes. The /v1/benchmarks endpoint is available to all Pro and API-tier subscribers. Pass a CRA category code and revenue band to receive the full percentile distribution. See the API documentation for details.
Access peer benchmark data for every CRA category and revenue band through the CharityVerify API.
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