2018 What Canadian Donors Want: Segmentation

To investigate further into Canadians’ motivations for giving, the 2015 survey included a segmentation of donors. In 2017, the segmentation was replicated using a simulator (shortened list of items rather than the full battery of items used in the original segmentation). The shortened list of items comprise the items best likely to reproduce the original segmentation. The 2015 segmentation research identified six segments of donors based on their motivations for donating

• Affiliative: Enjoy going to fundraising events and donate to charities from which they or someone they know has benefited (representative of 24% of respondents)
• Communal: Donate to locally-based charities that benefit those in their community (representative of 17% of respondents)
• Pragmatist: Family tradition of donating to a specific charity and donate to a charity where a tax credit is provided (representative of 29% of respondents)
• Benevolent: Doing good is a moral obligation and want to help those in need (representative of 13% of respondents)
• Reactive: Do not strongly associate with charities they donate to, and wait to be approached to donate (representative of 9% of respondents)
• Adherent/Reverent: Donate to charities that share their beliefs or morals and motivated by their religious beliefs (representative of 10% of respondents)

Most segments remained the same size, but there was an increase in the proportion of Pragmatists and a similar decline in the proportion of Reactives.

About the Study

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between October 10 and October 17, 2017, on behalf of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. For this survey, a sample of 1,500 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ±2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadian adults been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.