Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/charities-giving/charities/policies-guidance/charitable-purposes-activities-that-benefit-youth-guidance.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 02:26:36+00:00

Document:
This guidance replaces CPS-015, Registration of organizations directed at youth.
1. The Canada Revenue Agency’s Charities Directorate registers charities under the Income Tax Act. It also ensures that registered charities continue to meet all associated legal and administrative requirements.
2. This guidance explains the Charities Directorate’s interpretation of the relevant common law (case law or court decisions) and legislation (the Act) to determine whether an organization established to benefit youth is eligible for registration as a charity under the Act.
3. Many organizations that have purposes and activities that benefit youth consider applying for registration as a charity. For information about this and other options, go to the webpage Make an informed decision about becoming a registered charity.
5. An organization must meet a number of general requirements to qualify for registration under the Act. For detailed information about registration requirements, see Guidance CG-017, General requirements for charitable registration.
6. This guidance provides general information only. All decisions about specific organizations are made individually, applying the law to the facts in each case. The facts may come from the organization itself or from other information available to the Charities Directorate.
9. While purposes in each of the four categories of charity described above can benefit youth, purposes that address or prevent specific problems faced by youth—such as juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, eating disorders, teen pregnancy, depression, family conflict, and suicide—can be charitable under the fourth category.
13. For more information on how to properly define eligible beneficiaries, see Policy statement, CPS-024, Guidelines for registering a charity: Meeting the public benefit test.
15. To show that an activity can reasonably be expected to provide the necessary public benefit, substantive evidence of a causal connection is needed. In most cases, this means that an organization must show that an activity has sufficient structure and focus to actually address or prevent the specific problem faced by youth.
16. An organization established with a purpose of helping youth deal with identified problems, and that provides only recreational activities that are not structured and focused on addressing these problems, cannot qualify for registration. For example, simply keeping youth off the streets does not, in and of itself, further a charitable purpose. Without monitoring, teaching, or some sort of structure and focus, it will be difficult to establish that an activity is addressing or preventing identified problems.
20. To further advancement of education purposes, information or training activities must be provided in a structured manner and for a genuinely educational purpose—that is, “to advance the knowledge or abilities of the recipients—and not solely to promote a particular point of view...”.Footnote 9 The form of these activities requires an actual teaching or learning component. What is needed is a legitimate, targeted attempt at educating others, whether through formal or informal instruction, training, plans of self-study, or otherwise. Simply providing an opportunity for people to educate themselves, such as by making available materials with which this might be accomplished but need not be, is not enough.
23. In the case of youth, activities that develop emotional and moral maturity, the ability to effectively interact with others, teamwork, co‑operation, good citizenship, and leadership skills will also be considered to be educational in most cases, provided the necessary form (an appropriately structured teaching or learning component) is present.
25. To a limited extent, ancillary and incidental activities that do not have a teaching or learning component are permitted, particularly if they form part of activities that do.Footnote 12 An example would be field trips to reward young students for good behaviour in class.
27. Generally, for social or recreational activities to further a charitable purpose, they must be structured in such a way that they provide a charitable benefit to youth. For example, activities such as youth dances, movie nights, concerts, and sporting events that are supervised by qualified, responsible individuals may further a charitable purpose if they are part of a structured and focused approach to dealing with identified issues that affect at-risk youth. Critical factors include the degree of supervision or interaction, and the degree to which the social activities actually further the charitable purposes of the organization.
28. On the other hand, issues such as delinquency or substance abuse will not necessarily or actively be addressed by simply offering opportunities or facilities where social or recreational activities might take place. By themselves, activities for youth such as operating coffee houses, hosting card games, providing video games, or organizing dance parties will unlikely further a charitable purpose.
29. While unstructured social or recreational activities can be offered to provide a constructive alternative to undesirable environments that contribute to youth problems, or to encourage youth to participate in other structured activities conducted by an organization, these unstructured activities are only permitted if they are ancillary and incidentalFootnote 14 to the organization’s charitable purposes.
30. The law does not recognize purposes that promote sport as charitable.Footnote 15 However, some sports activities can further charitable purposes that benefit youth such as when they help build self-esteem, prevent addiction, or assist in the recovery from addiction.
31. Where an organization will further its charitable purpose through a sports activity, it must demonstrate that the activity is a structured and focused attempt to address an identified youth issue. Participation in sports alone is not enough. Substantive evidence of a causal connection between the activity and the delivery of the charitable benefit is needed. For example, when participation in sports activities is shown to be part of a structured program to prevent the delinquency of at-risk youth, the sports activities may directly further a charitable purpose. Therefore, it is not the inherent nature of a sports activity that determines whether it is charitable, but rather how that sports activity furthers a charitable purpose.
32. An organization would need an appropriate selection process that ensures that the at-risk youth identified in its purposes benefit from its sports activities. It is not necessary that only these youth participate, but the factors set out in paragraph 18 of this guidance apply.
33. In the same way, simply providing sports equipment or opportunities for youth to play sports is unlikely to directly further a charitable purpose, unless the program is restricted to providing equipment and registration fees to poor youth as an activity to further a relief of poverty purpose.
34. For more information, see Policy statement CPS-027, Sports and charitable registration.
37. To show that their activities are structured, focused, and clearly directed toward addressing or preventing specific problems facing youth, drop-in centres can use appropriate qualification criteria and screening processes to select individuals that will interact with youth.
For more information, see Guidance CG-019, How to draft purposes for charitable registration.
Where the benefit is not tangible, it must be demonstrated to be valuable or approved by “the common understanding of enlightened opinion for the time being.” For more information about public benefit, see Policy statement CPS-024, Guidelines for registering a charity: Meeting the public benefit test.
See Policy statement CPS-012, Benefits to Aboriginal Peoples of Canada.
For more information, see Policy statement CPS-024, and, for example, Oppenheim v. Tobacco Securities Trust Co Ltd.,  A.C. 297 per Lord Simonds at p.306; IRC v. Educational Grants Association Ltd.,  Ch 993; and Independent Schools Council v. Charity Commission for England and Wales; Attorney General v. Charity Commission for England and Wales and another,  UKUT 421 (TCC) (Independent Schools).
Teaching activities that further a fourth category purpose do not necessarily have to meet the same requirements for educational activities. However, these activities must be shown to deliver the required benefit, as explained in paragraphs 14‑19 of this guidance.
See Waters' Law of Trusts in Canada (2005) 3rd edition, on page 726, where it is noted: “physical health has long been recognized as a necessary complement of the mental well-being which education requires of its students.” See also IRC v. McMullen,  A.C. 1 (H.L.); Re Mariette,  2 Ch. 284; Re Mellody,  1 Ch. 228; Kearins v. Kearins,  S.R. (N.S.W.) 286; and Policy statement, CPS-027, Sports and charitable registration.
Social activities for disabled youth are not subject to this guidance. Social activities that further purposes that assist disabled youth to integrate into society or provide social rehabilitation may qualify as charitable under the fourth category of charitable purposes by providing relief from conditions associated with disability.
See Policy statement, CPS-016, Distinction between self-help and members' groups.

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