Canada's non-profit maze

As the economic recession began to take hold one year later, the Wellesley Institute asked Lynn Eakin and Associates to do a detailed scan of the sector, and speak with experts, including charity law lawyers and sector leaders and thinkers from across the non-profit and charitable spectrum of organizations. [...] The starting point is for Canada (along with provincial and local governments) to recognize the critical importance of the third sector and set in place the process to start to unravel the choking maze of regulatory and financial overload. [...] In the past 15 years, however, the pace of change in the sector has accelerated and, with it, the complexity of the obstacles it faces. [...] To this end, the Wellesley Institute commissioned Lynn Eakin and Associates to engage thought- and practice leaders in the third sector to tell us about the impact of the legislative and regulatory environment on revenue generation and to identify who is doing what on the key issues. [...] The scan of organizations is presented in Appendix B. Understanding the Legislative and Regulatory Environment: The Third Sector in the 21st Century Sector Revenue Trends Many of the regulatory barriers to revenue generation for charities and non-profit organizations are directly linked to the changing context in which the sector works.