Case studies · Kamloops
Five hundred charities in the Tournament Capital.
Two ridings in the British Columbia interior, from the Nicola Valley to the Shuswap. 526 charities that filed a 2024 return, read from the public record.
Since the last newspaper closed, it is no one's job to notice.
What the sector looks like here.
The two Kamloops ridings run from the Nicola Valley through Tk'emlúps, where the rivers meet, to the Shuswap and the edge of the Rockies, and they have 526 registered charities. The median charity runs on $140,000 a year, half run on under $150,000, and the median board has seven members.
Kamloops calls itself the Tournament Capital, and the sector bears that out: community benefit is the largest group here, not religion, with recreation and sport societies throughout it, the museums and cultural centres, the service clubs, the hospital foundation, the search and rescue. Congregations are a third of the sector.
By the one measure the record gives, the boards are in good shape: eleven per cent have three members or fewer.
By annual revenue
By charitable purpose
Purpose is the category head on the CRA return. Median revenue here is $140,000; the median board has 7 members.
What the record shows about strain.
The model flags forty-six organizations, nine per cent of those scored, which is Canada's rate. A flag means only that an organization's filings over several years resemble those of charities that later lost their registration. Twenty-three of the forty-six run on under $150,000 a year, and fewer than five have the stronger flag.
Thirteen registrations were revoked between 2022 and 2025, and the split between chosen and unchosen is too small to print. The local record shows what a chosen one looks like. A seniors' society on the North Shore dissolved in 2024 because the people who ran it had aged out of running it. A century-old Anglican parish, built by Japanese Canadians in 1927, closed in 2023 when its congregation had fallen to twenty-one and decided, together, to close. Both were decided by the people who had kept them going.
What an ending looks like here.
A society in British Columbia ends under the Societies Act, and a registered charity ends under the Income Tax Act in every province. A board here has to satisfy both, and no government page sets out the order.
Distance matters here in its own way. Vancouver is four hours over the Coquihalla, and much of the sector's counsel is there; Kamloops itself has the successors, the foundation, and the university. Since the last newspaper closed in 2023, it has been no one's job to notice when a small organization goes quiet.
Who sits on the boards.
The Thompson's boards are joined through a few people on many boards; one person here sits on thirteen. Drawn out, that is a denominational spine, and beneath it the civic layer of volunteers who sit on the museum, the search and rescue, and the hospital foundation at once.
Bubbles are organizations, coloured by purpose and sized by revenue band. Dots are people who sit on two or more of these boards. Drag to move, scroll to zoom, click to see one organization's connections, click the background to clear. No one is named: the shape is public, the people are not.
The work
What we would do here.
In Kamloops, closing together would mean boards from both ridings working from one Toolkit, with the British Columbia pages in it, and a host from the Thompson.
A host charity, usually a healthy one with a meeting room and a small budget for lunch, invites the boards from the Nicola to the Shuswap that have decided to close, or are deciding, to close together. Each organization that joins passes a board motion naming a coordinator from its own community and takes its own Toolkit licence, at no cost where the board has already decided to wind down. Public Benefit brings the method, the binder, the training, and support by phone. The knowledge stays in the Thompson.
The two organizations named in this case study ended by their own decision and said so in public, and are named for that. We do not use the model to approach anyone. A board that recognizes itself here can start the conversation.
Roundtables · the community of practice, in one room
Come and correct us.
A day or an evening in Kamloops, hosted by a local charity.
The public record only shows so much. A roundtable brings six to twenty community leaders in Kamloops together for a day or an evening to go over this case study, correct it, and work out what the charities near them are facing. It is hosted by a healthy local charity with a meeting room and a small budget for lunch, and a sponsor helps defray the cost. Within the month we send a report in the room's own words, and the corrections this case study owes are made and dated in the correction log. How a roundtable works, and who provides what.
What we will ask at the roundtable.
- The North Shore Community Centre Society dissolved in 2024 because its members could no longer run it. How many of the city's seniors' and recreation societies are a year behind it?
- Kamloops lost its last newspaper in 2023. When a small organization here goes quiet, who notices now?
- A society here ends under the Societies Act and a charity under the Income Tax Act. Which boards in the Thompson and the Nicola know they have to do both, and in what order?
- Merritt is still recovering from the 2021 flood. Which of the Nicola Valley's organizations were built for the recovery, and what happens to them when it is declared over?
- Which congregations and halls in the Shuswap and the Thompson should be talking to each other, and have they ever met?
The Critical Path
Closing an organization in British Columbia.
A charity in British Columbia closes twice: once under the Societies Act, which governs the corporation, and once under the Income Tax Act, which governs the registration. The two have an order, and no government page sets it out.
The Critical Path, British Columbia edition, is that order on one folded sheet: each step from the first hard conversation to the last filing, who decides it, and the document it files, with its regulator, its fee, and a specimen of its first page. This case study is printed inside it. It will come as part of Foundations, with the Guide and access to the Foundations Course. Foundations is in development.
How this case study was made.
Public data, and math. The full method brief.
The counts are arithmetic on three public files: the Canada Revenue Agency's list of charities and their annual returns, 2011 to 2024; the Canada Gazette's notices of revocation; and Elections Canada's postal code file, which places a mailing address in a riding. A "flag" is the mark our model, Canary v3 / Distress v3, puts on a charity whose filings over several years resemble those of charities that later lost registration. It is a weak signal and we say so: about 1.4 in a hundred charities lose their registration within three years, about 2.9 in a hundred flagged ones do, and the rest carry on. We use flags to count, never to approach anyone.
A mailing address is not a service area, and 22 of Canada's 343 ridings are not yet in the postal-code crosswalk. Where a count is under five, we print "fewer than five", so that no organization can be picked out of it. The method brief has the model's validation, the counting rules, and the limits in full.
Local record, as reported: Castanet on the North Shore Community Centre Society dissolving, 2024; CFJC on St. George's Anglican closing after nearly a century, 2023; CBC on Kamloops This Week closing, 2023; Shuswap Community Foundation, 2024 to 2025 grants.
Sources: CRA List of Charities and T3010 returns, 2011 to 2024; Canada Gazette, Part I, revocations 2022 to 2025; Elections Canada, 2023 representation order. Model: Canary v3 / Distress v3, 1 July 2026; out-of-time AUC 0.68; flag precision 2.5 to 3.3 per cent. Counting script: case-study.py; the riding-level counts it produces: case-studies-aggregate.csv. The organization-level score file is available to a reviewer under a data agreement, and the method paper on request. If you find an error in the counting, write to info@publicbenefit.ca; we will correct the case study and record it in the correction log.