Five years ago, I found a small backwater of the Canadian Revenue Agency online called the Charities Directorate. The Charities Directorate publishes the informational returns that each registered Canadian charity is required to complete each year. I blogged a bit about it here, but the site was so difficult to use and counter-intuitive that it was of little value.

Fast forward to just over a month ago, and I had an idea. If the government does a poor job presenting this public information, why don't I just create a better site myself?

In the following weeks I contacted the Charities Directorate, requested a copy of their information, and started building a website around it.

OpenCharity.ca is my attempt at making information on Canadian charities accessible, understandable, and intuitive. I've reformatted the information and made it easier to explore the links between different charities. The entire site is also being indexed by Google, so when you search for a charity you should also get OpenCharity as a search result.

Anyway, enough of me rambling on about this. Go over a give it a look for yourself. Some interesting charities you might want to start at are:

• The Asper Foundation
• Fort Garry Mennonite Fellowship
• Springs of Living Water
• United Way of Winnipeg
• Winnipeg Folk Festival