The Math On Vernon’s Nonprofits
I’ve been a member of the Elks. I belong to the Schubert Centre. I’ve volunteered at the Towne Theatre. None of that is hypothetical for me- these are places where I’ve seen up close how much of what keeps this community running depends on people showing up for free. This is a conversation that happens more and more between myself and other residents.
The Elks Hall doesn’t book itself and fundraise on autopilot. The Schubert Centre doesn’t keep its programs running without members volunteering hours between the shifts the few paid staff can cover. And the Towne Theatre, a volunteer run society (Okanagan Screen Arts Society) that saved the historic 1929 movie house, runs on exactly that kind of unpaid work. None of it shows up on a City spreadsheet, but the whole thing depends on it.
I wanted to know what that’s actually worth to Vernon, so I used AI (to ensure my dyslexia didn’t mess up the math) to help me run the numbers and numbers only. Rest assured I wrote this piece.
British Columbians volunteer roughly 269 million hours a year (imagine Canada/Statistics Canada). Scaled down to Vernon’s population, that works out to an estimated 2.1 million volunteer hours donated to our city every year. Valued conservatively at the B.C. nonprofit sector’s own average wage (~$27/hour), what it would actually cost to pay someone to do that work, that’s roughly $56 million a year in labourVernon residents are giving away for free.
Break that down per household, and it comes out to about $2590 a year, almost exactly what the City of Vernon’s share of your 2026 property tax bill already costs you ($2,427).
Read that again: I sure did after I completed the math and not because of the amount but because of how little I see it valued. The unpaid work of our neighbors is worth about as much, every year, as the entire municipal portion of our taxes. If that volunteer labor disappeared tomorrow and the City had to pay to replace even a fraction of it, we’d be looking at a serious tax increase, and that’s BEFORE accounting for actual programs, buildings, and services nonprofits run on top of that labor, funded through grants, donations, and fundraising that has nothing to do with City Hall.
And this isn’t just a Vernon story, it’s a provincial one. BC’s nonprofit sector contributes $31.9 billion to the provinces GDP and employs 377,000 people (Imagine Canada, 2025), a bigger workforce than mining or forestry. This is a real economic sector, not a charity case, and Vernon’s share of it deserves to be treated that way: as a driver of workforce retention, local spending, and community capacity, not an afterthought in the budget.
And yet: the City of Vernon’s entire discretionary grant program for nonprofits, the pool that has supported groups like Family Resource Centre, Archway Society for Domestic Peace, the Vernon Community Music School, and dozens of others, usually totals well under $150,000 a year, and its over subscribed every single intake.
RDNO’s support tells a similar story, just quieter. A handful of flagship cultural institutions (often in buildings owned by by the City of Vernon or RDNO), the Vernon Public Art Gallery, the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives , the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre, receive ongoing operating support through RDNO, and right now RDNO is funding construction of a new $46 million dollar Greater Vernon Cultural Centre to house the Gallery and Museum together, costing the average household roughly $28 a year for the next eight years, then $57 a year for the next fifteen. That’s real, ongoing regional investment, and it’s worth acknowledging. But it’s a a narrow tier. It’s also worth acknowledging the build has been extremely controversial because of it not being what it was promised and its large cost. Community run, volunteer built spaces are doing just as much for Vernon’s cultural life- the Towne Thestre, run entirely by the volunteer-driven Okanagan Screen Arts Society- survive on GoFundMe campaigns, corporate donations and federal summer job subsidies, with incomparable regional operating support. If you’re a flagship institution, the region shows up every year. If you’re the volunteers who saved a 1929 movie theatre with their own fundraising, you’re on your own.
And it’s not just labor, it’s infrastructure we’d otherwise have to build ourselves. The events nonprofits put on bring people downtown and dollars into local businesses. The affordable space many of them offer, for rehearsals, meetings, programs, storage, fills a gap that would otherwise fall to the City or simply go unmet. This is a sector that’s genuinely driving our local economy not just filling in around the edges of it, and we should be talking about it that way.
That math doesn’t sit right with me.
Nonprofits aren’t a “nice to have” line item. They’re doing work that would otherwise fall to already stretched municipal budgets; or simply wouldn’t get done at all. If elected, I’m committing to:
-Advocating for a real, adequately funded grants in aid program, not one that turns away most of the groups that apply
-Pushing RDNO to treat nonprofit support as core infrastructure, not an afterthought
-Prioritizing operational funding, not just project grants, a little reliable core support is often what lets a nonprofit qualify for and leverage larger provincial and federal dollars, instead of scrambling year to year
-Advocating to make sure council hears from the volunteers and boards doing this work before decisions get made, not after
-Publicly recognizing the scale of what’s being contributed, so it’s never taken for granted
Vernon runs on more volunteer hours than most people realize. It’s time our municipal and regional budgets reflected that.
If you volunteer or run a nonprofit in Vernon, I’d love to hear your story or suggestions in the comments.
On October 17,2026 vote Dawn Tucker for Vernon City Council, your Financial Watchdog- a voice you can count on. See BuzzDawn.ca for my full platform.
#NonprofitsMatter#VolunteersMatter#SupportNonprofits#ThankAVolunteer#CommunityFirst#NorthOkanagan#RDNO
Vernon Towne TheatreVernon Elks Lodge #45Schubert CentreFamily Resource Centre