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Wellesley Institute works in research and policy to improve health and health equity in the GTA through action on the social determinants of health.

Home Blog Health systems and Health equity Canada’s vital non-profit sector: Too important to be ignored!

Michael Shapcott

Canada’s vital non-profit sector: Too important to be ignored!

Canada’s non-profit sector is big (more than 160,000 organizations) and non-profits make a major contribution to Canada’s economy, they employ more than a million people and non-profits help to create healthy communities. The Wellesley Institute’s Michael Shapcott delivered a presentation to the leadership conference of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada today that examined the challenges facing Canada’s non-profit sector including a growing administrative burden, the urgent need for collaboration and innovation, and financial resiliency. He urged the public service leaders at today’s conference to help Canada catch up to other countries – such as the UK and US – that have modernized non-profit legislation and regulations, and urged them to work with the sector to create the conditions for more vibrant non-profits.

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Michael Shapcott

Michael Shapcott

Michael Shapcott is Director, Affordable Housing and Social Innovation at Wellesley Institute. Michael has worked extensively in Toronto, in many parts of Canada, nationally and internationally on social innovation, the non-profit sector, civic engagement, housing and housing rights, poverty, social exclusion, urban health and health equity. He is recognized as one of Canada’s leading community-based housing and homelessness experts. He is currently on secondment to the Princes' Charities Canada.

Acknowledgement of Traditional Land

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the Wellesley Institute operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

Revised by the Ceremonial Committee at the University of Toronto Office of Indigenous Initiatives in April 2021.