The data tells a story
Since 2019, ONN has been on a data journey. After hearing reports of nonprofit closures, downsizing, and government funding cuts, ONN launched its first State of the Sector survey. The survey started as a way to check-in with the sector, reflect on its wellbeing and needs, and bolster ONN’s public policy and advocacy work with the realities the nonprofit sector was experiencing in real-time.
Filling a gap in data with ONN’s state of the sector survey
The survey has also provided a critical and often missing resource to the sector – data about the sector itself.
Since the National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organisations (released in 2004), there has not been a comprehensive survey of the nonprofit sector. Without data about the sector, nonprofit advocates and leaders in Ontario were unable to link what they were experiencing in their individual organizations or subsector to broader nonprofit needs, limiting their capacity for nonprofit advocacy and collective action.
ONN’s State of the Sector surveys have helped the nonprofit sector cement its identity and capture a snapshot of the sector at particular moments in time, deepening our understanding of the changing nonprofit landscape and contextualizing how provincial and federal policies, regulations, broader political, economic, and social factors affect the sector. In addition to giving nonprofits and other key stakeholders access to high quality data about the sector, disaggregated by demographic variables, ONN and our partners use the survey data to influence public policy, push for changes in funding, and inform the public about nonprofit realities.
Over time, the survey has continued to evolve; there are some historical demographic questions that help ONN understand the composition of the survey respondents, and some questions that have shifted yearly to reflect emergent concerns. Repeating core questions has allowed some longitudinal analysis, enabling ONN to map trends and understand shifts within the sector. The survey has also expanded to better capture equity-led, -focused, and -serving nonprofits.
As the survey has changed, so has ONN’s relationship to the data. We have changed how we understand the numbers it generates and how those numbers (and words!) support our mission. It’s become better integrated into our work – enabling us to offer workshops, seminars, and conference sessions that address nonprofit topics, offer localized data to our regional networks, and develop our policy briefs.
And like so much of our work, it is not a linear process – we continue to refine and learn new things every year.
New data profiles
Starting with the 2024 survey, ONN is proud to present data profiles on three demographic markers: rural nonprofits, B3 nonprofits, and operating budget. These profiles were developed to answer our curiosity and that of the sector’s by asking: what do different groups or types of nonprofits have in common? What is unique about them? What do different nonprofit types need to better succeed?
That last question belies our fundamental work and one of our core principles – data (both quantitative and qualitative) is a tool. It is useful in helping us understand what the sector is facing and in developing our advocacy strategies. All this data tells so many stories.
So why focus on data collection or sensemaking?
Without data it becomes all too easy to ignore how policies affect our sector, skewing data collection and analysis, and making it difficult to showcase the sector’s importance and contributions.
Circling back to why we started the survey in 2019, we know that uncertainty can lend itself to isolation and siloing. Worse, as nonprofits focus on their work and responding to immediate community needs, it can seem frivolous to focus on data collection and reporting, especially provincially. But as our survey has clearly demonstrated time and again, our sector thrives when we use our collective data to share our narratives with policymakers, funders, and advocates.
So what’s next?
- Continue to be curious and reflect on your data journey: what is the data that your organization collects, shares, or reports? How does it connect to your work, mission, or mandate? Where are there opportunities to learn from it and be supported by it?
- Have data-related conversations with other nonprofits to develop or strengthen your organization (or nonprofit collective) to better understand, analyze, and utilize data.
- Access our 2024 State of the Sector report, the technical report, and the profiles.
- Complete our 2025 survey! Please fill out the survey and get other nonprofits to do the same. The more respondents we have, the better we can reflect on nonprofit needs.
- Provide us with feedback: what would you like to know about our sector? What data would be useful to your work?
