Does your nonprofit website have to be accessible?
The honest answer, minus the sales pitch: what Canadian accessibility law actually requires of a small nonprofit, when it doesn’t apply to you, and the two real reasons to build accessible anyway.
Published July 9, 2026
Does my nonprofit website have to be accessible?
Usually not, at least not by law. As of 2026, most small Canadian charities have no legal requirement to meet web accessibility standards. BC’s Accessible BC Act applies to public bodies like school districts and municipalities, not private nonprofits. The federal Accessible Canada Act covers banks, telecom, and federal organizations with 10 or more employees. Ontario’s AODA is the exception, and only inside Ontario. So no one is likely to make you. The reason to do it anyway: funders increasingly ask, and 27% of Canadians live with a disability (Statistics Canada, 2022), which is a lot of people to leave out.
Someone is selling you the fear
If you’ve been told your nonprofit is “out of compliance” and needs an urgent, expensive fix, slow down. Web accessibility is genuinely worth doing. But the panic around it is often manufactured by the same vendors who sell the cure, and most of what they imply about the law simply isn’t true for a small charity.
- A vendor emails to say your site “fails WCAG” and quotes a package to fix it
- The word “compliance” makes it sound like a law you’re already breaking
- You’re told every organization has to meet WCAG 2.1 AA, no exceptions
- The fix is urgent, pricey, and sold by the same person who flagged it
- Most small Canadian charities have no legal requirement to meet WCAG yet
- The BC law binds public bodies like school districts, not private nonprofits
- The federal law covers banks, telecom, and federal bodies with 10+ staff
- There are two real reasons to do it anyway, and neither one is a fine
Which of these actually binds you?
There are three Canadian accessibility laws people cite. Here’s who each one covers, and whether a small nonprofit is on the hook. For most, the answer to all three is no.
Accessible Canada Act
Who it binds: The federal government, Crown corporations, and federally regulated businesses like banks, telecom, and interprovincial transport, once they have 10 or more employees.
Is it you? Only if your organization is federally regulated. Almost no local charity is.
Accessible BC Act
Who it binds: The BC government and prescribed public-sector bodies: school districts, municipalities, health authorities, post-secondary institutions, and regional districts. Phased in through 2023 and 2024.
Is it you? Not if you’re a private nonprofit or charity. It doesn’t reach you yet.
AODA
Who it binds: Ontario public bodies and private organizations with 50 or more employees, which have to meet WCAG 2.0 AA on their public websites.
Is it you? Only if you operate in Ontario. If you serve Ontario clients remotely, it’s worth a look.
Operating in Ontario, or serving Ontario clients? Here’s the full guide to AODA website compliance, with the thresholds, deadlines, and penalties in plain English.
Two reasons that aren’t a fine
Skip the fear. There are two honest reasons a small nonprofit should build to WCAG 2.1 AA anyway, and both of them are about the people who matter to you.
Funders are starting to ask
Government funders at the federal and provincial level increasingly want to see WCAG compliance as a condition of a grant, and some private foundations are following. You don’t want to find that out the week the application is due. A site that already meets the standard is one less thing to scramble for. We serve on nonprofit boards ourselves, so we’ve seen these asks from your side of the table, not just the vendor’s.
27% of Canadians live with a disability
Statistics Canada put it at 27% of people aged 15 and older in 2022, about 8 million people. If your donation form can’t be finished with a keyboard, or your text is too faint to read on a phone in sunlight, some of the people you exist to serve simply can’t use your site. None of that breaks a law. It still means you’re turning people away at the door.
It’s how we build by default. Every site we make for a nonprofit meets WCAG 2.1 AA as a baseline, so there’s nothing to retrofit later.
Six ways to spot a problem in ten minutes
You don’t need to hire anyone to get a rough sense of where you stand. Run through these, and if a few of them fail, you’ll know it’s time for a proper look.
Found a few problems? Here’s how to make your website WCAG compliant, step by step, starting with the fixes you can do yourself.
- Try to use your site with only the keyboard, no mouse. Can you reach every link and finish every form?
- Turn your phone brightness down outside. Can you still read the text over your brand colours?
- Check that every image that carries meaning has alt text a screen reader can announce.
- Make sure form fields have visible labels, and that errors say what to fix in plain words.
- Read a paragraph out loud. If it’s written at a university reading level, a lot of your audience is working harder than they should.
- Load your homepage on an old phone over slow data. If it crawls, you’re losing people before they see anything.
When guessing stops being enough
A self-check tells you if something’s wrong. It can’t tell a funder you’ve done your due diligence, and it can’t catch the barriers that only show up with a screen reader. When a grant asks for documentation, or you want to know your site actually works for the people using assistive technology, that’s an audit.
Our accessibility audit: nine dimensions, from $1,500- A funder or board is asking for accessibility documentation
- You’re applying for government funding that lists WCAG as a condition
- You’re about to redesign and want to start from a clean baseline
- Real people have told you they can’t use part of your site
What nonprofit leaders ask about this
Does my nonprofit website need to be accessible?
By law, usually not, at least not yet. As of 2026, most small Canadian charities have no legal requirement to meet web accessibility standards. British Columbia’s Accessible BC Act applies to public bodies like school districts and municipalities, not private nonprofits. The federal Accessible Canada Act covers federally regulated organizations such as banks and telecom with 10 or more employees. So no one is likely to force you. The reasons to do it anyway are that funders increasingly ask for it, and 27% of Canadians live with a disability, which is a large share of the people you serve.
What are the accessibility rules for websites in Canada and BC?
There are three laws worth knowing. The Accessible Canada Act is federal and applies to federally regulated organizations with 10 or more employees. The Accessible BC Act is provincial and applies only to public-sector bodies like municipalities, school districts, and health authorities, phased in through 2023 and 2024. Ontario’s AODA applies to Ontario public bodies and private organizations with 50 or more employees. Most small nonprofits fall outside all three, but WCAG 2.1 AA is the standard all of them point to, and the one funders look for.
Does the Accessible Canada Act apply to my charity?
Almost certainly not, unless your organization is federally regulated. The Act covers the federal government, Crown corporations, and federally regulated industries like banking, telecommunications, and interprovincial transport, and only once they reach 10 employees. A local literacy society or community charity isn’t federally regulated, so the Act doesn’t bind it. It’s still a useful benchmark, because it points at the same WCAG standard everyone else uses.
Is AODA relevant if we’re not in Ontario?
Only if you operate in Ontario or serve Ontario clients. AODA is Ontario’s provincial law, so a BC or Alberta charity isn’t governed by it. But it’s the oldest and most-cited Canadian web accessibility law, which is why so much online advice assumes it applies to everyone. It doesn’t. If part of your work reaches into Ontario, it’s worth checking whether the private-sector rules touch you.
How do I know if my website is accessible?
Start with a few checks you can do yourself: try to use the whole site with only the keyboard, confirm your text has enough contrast to read on a phone in daylight, and make sure every form field has a clear label. Free tools like a browser’s built-in Lighthouse scan catch some issues, but automated tools only find roughly 30 to 40% of real barriers. The rest, like whether a screen reader can actually complete your donation form, need a person to test. That’s what a full audit is for.
How much does a website accessibility audit cost?
Our baseline audit is $1,500 CAD. It assesses your site across nine dimensions, not just an automated WCAG scan, and gives you a prioritized, funder-ready report you can act on or hand to a developer. Deeper tiers add manual screen reader and keyboard testing. You can see the full breakdown on our accessibility audit page.
No one’s going to fine you. Someone will still notice.
A funder reading your next application will notice, and so will the person who couldn’t finish your donation form. Book a free call and we’ll tell you honestly where your site stands, and whether it’s worth doing anything about.