Donating For The Cause

Toronto, ON - A new survey conducted by Ipsos Reid on behalf of Scotiabank's Scotia Private Client Group asked Canadians with assets over $250,000 across the country about their philanthropic decisions.

Ninety seven percent of Canadians said that the charity's cause is most important when considering philanthropic giving, while ninety four percent said that they are motivated by their personal values. Ninety three percent say that their philanthropic decisions are motivated by the charitable organization. Only three quarters (76 percent) cite tax savings as the motivation to their philanthropic decision, while fifty four percent cite the timing of the charitable request.

Of Canadians who have established or considered making a legacy gift, sixty-six percent indicate that tax reduction was somewhat or very important in determining the size of the asset for their legacy gift.

Donated assets that respondents assumed to qualify for tax incentives for philanthropic giving include: bequests by will (68 percent), art (49 percent), public securities or stocks (45 percent), charitable remainder trusts (44 percent), ecological land (41 percent), life insurance (37 percent), annuities (31 percent), and RRSPs or RRIFs (29 percent).

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted on behalf of Scotiabank Canada. These are the findings of an online survey of 1,518 Canadians from the Ipsos Reid Online Panel with investable assets of over $250,000. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 1772.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what would have been, had this entire population been polled. The online survey was conducted between June 6th and June 13th, 2006.

For more information on this news release, please contact:
John Wright
Senior Vice President,
Ipsos Reid
(416) 324-2900

For full tabular results, please visit our website at www.ipsos.ca. News Releases are avail-able at: http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/