Across Alberta’s nonprofit sector, ongoing conversations about workforce sustainability reveal a range of interconnected challenges, including recruitment and retention, compensation, and capacity. Among these, retirement insecurity continues to emerge as a key concern.
Many nonprofit employees dedicate their careers to serving communities, often accepting lower wages and fewer benefits than their counterparts in the private and public sectors. Over time, this has contributed to a growing gap in access to workplace pensions and long-term retirement savings options, resulting in financial uncertainty for individuals and a broader workforce challenge for organizations working to recruit, retain, and support staff.
In 2024, the Alberta Nonprofit Network (ABNN), alongside sector partners, engaged with nonprofit leaders, staff, and stakeholders in conversations about workforce challenges. Participants highlighted the absence of structured retirement savings options, the difficulty of competing with other sectors that offer better benefits, and the long-term implications for both employees and organizational sustainability. There was also a clear interest in sector-wide solutions, rather than relying solely on what individual organizations can provide on their own.
These discussions sparked a deeper exploration of the issue. In 2025, ABNN and Volunteer Alberta launched the first phase of the Dignified Retirement Research Project, a first-of-its-kind provincial initiative to understand the current pension landscape and identify potential pathways forward. This research engaged more than 200 nonprofit employees and over 90 organizational leaders across Alberta, providing a detailed snapshot of retirement readiness across the sector. The findings are captured in the Pension Planning in the Nonprofit Sector: Current Gaps and Future Dreams Report.
What emerged from this work confirms both the scale and the urgency of the issue. While many leaders expressed a strong interest in improving retirement benefits, they also identified significant barriers, including budget constraints, funding instability, and limited capacity to manage pension programs.
Nearly half of employees (46.92%) reported their organization do not offer any pension or retirement savings plan, while more than one-third of organizations (37.36%) provide no retirement benefits at all. Where retirement savings options do exist, they are most often limited to group RRSPs rather than formal pension plans. Additionally, over 44% of respondents reported being dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their existing benefits, reflecting a disconnect between what is available and what is needed.
At the same time, the demand for better options is strong and consistent. More than 80% of employees indicated they would be willing to contribute to a pension plan, demonstrating a clear commitment and desire for long-term financial security. Interest in defined benefit models, which offer predictable retirement income, exceeding 85% in some cases.
Overall, the findings point to alignment across the sector on the importance of retirement security, alongside limited capacity within individual organizations to address it independently. This points to the need for solutions that are both collaborative and responsive to the financial realities of the nonprofit sector.
Building on this work, the provincial pension research initiative is now moving into its next phase in 2026. While the initial phase focused on understanding the issue and exploring potential models, this next stage focuses on moving closer to practical design and implementation.
This phase will examine governance and delivery models for a potential sector-wide pension solution, while assessing the conditions needed to move forward. A key priority will be ensuring that any future approach is both meaningful for employees and feasible for organizations to adopt and sustain.
Continued collaboration across the sector will be essential. The next stages will include ongoing dialogue with nonprofit representatives, refinement of potential options, and identifying partnerships and supports required to move from research to action. This includes exploring how funding structures, policy considerations, and shared approaches could expand access to retirement benefits across the sector.
There is a growing opportunity for the sector to come together around a shared goal of improving retirement security for nonprofit workers across Alberta. We are currently inviting expressions of interest for the next phase of this work, including participation in a provincial task force. Opportunities for partnerships with pension providers and other organizations are also being explored.
We encourage those who are interested to connect with us, share their perspectives, and take part in shaping a meaningful step forward for a sector-wide retirement plan.