Does the GrapheneOS Foundation publish annual financial statements or charity filings in Canada?
Executive summary
The available reporting does not show public, posted Canadian T3010 returns or audited financial statements for the GrapheneOS Foundation; public evidence instead shows the project solicits donations and is listed in corporate directories, while Canadian law requires registered charities to file T3010 returns with financial statements that are accessible via the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) upon search or request [1] [2] [3] [4]. Absent a direct link to a CRA listing or hosted financial PDFs from GrapheneOS itself in the provided sources, the claim that the foundation publishes annual Canadian charity filings cannot be confirmed from these documents.
1. What Canadian rules require charities to publish financial statements
Canadian registered charities must attach financial statements to their annual T3010 Registered Charity Information Return and submit that return within six months of fiscal year‑end; financial statements are required even for inactive charities or those with zero balances, and larger charities are advised to obtain audited statements [3] [4]. The CRA also maintains a public Charities Listings and provides a formal "Request for registered charity information" form to obtain a charity’s T3010 returns and financial statements if they are not easily discoverable online [5] [6].
2. What the reporting shows about GrapheneOS Foundation’s public disclosures
GrapheneOS’s own donation page documents that donations are accepted in multiple currencies and via services including Wise, PayPal, Bitcoin and Monero, and it labels the recipient as the non‑profit GrapheneOS Foundation [1]. Corporate‑directory and federal incorporation entries identify a GrapheneOS Foundation entity in Toronto, signaling an incorporated body that can receive funds and be subject to Canadian filing rules [7] [2]. However, none of the supplied sources contain copies or links to T3010 forms, audited financial statements, or annual financial reports posted by the foundation itself.
3. Community demand for transparency and the absence of posted reports
Threads on the GrapheneOS discussion forum show community members explicitly asking whether financial reports or donation tallies will be published, indicating user expectation for visible accounting; those requests appear unresolved in the snippets provided [8] [9]. Charity‑rating and research organizations such as Charity Intelligence stress that financial statements and CRA T3010 filings are primary sources for charity financial transparency, and they downgrade transparency scores when statements are not posted within a reasonable period [10]. The combination of community queries and sector norms underscores a transparency gap in the material provided.
4. What can be done to verify filings and why absence in reporting is not proof of non‑filing
Because the CRA’s Charities Listings and the formal request process are the authoritative routes to obtain a charity’s T3010 returns and financial statements, verification requires searching that listing or submitting a request to the CRA; these mechanisms are described by government guidance cited here [5] [6]. The presence of a corporate listing in federal databases and a D&B profile shows the organization exists in public registries, but those business directories do not substitute for CRA‑posted charity filings and may draw on private data rather than public T3010s [7] [2]. The sources do not prove that filings do or do not exist with CRA; they only show that such filings are not publicly posted on GrapheneOS’s site or included among the supplied documents.
5. Alternative viewpoints, implicit agendas, and recommended next steps
Supporters of GrapheneOS might argue the project prioritizes code openness over traditional nonprofit reporting channels and could be filing with CRA without posting copies on its website; critics and potential donors, by contrast, have an interest in seeing explicit audited statements or T3010s to confirm stewardship of funds, an expectation reflected in forum requests and charity transparency norms [8] [9] [10]. To resolve the factual question definitively, the CRA Charities Listings should be searched for “GrapheneOS Foundation” or the formal Request for registered charity information should be used to obtain the T3010 and attached financial statements; those are the authoritative documents referenced by CRA guidance and charity research organizations [5] [4] [10].