To be registered as a charity, an organization must have purposes that are exclusively charitable and conduct activities that further those purposes. An organization’s purposes are found in its governing documents, and outline its goals and objectives. Activities are the ways the organization furthers its purposes. The Canada Revenue Agency looks at both of these when deciding if it can register a charity.

For more information, see Guidance CG-019, How to draft purposes for charitable registration.

There are four broad categories of charitable purposes, as listed below.