Giving and Volunteering Levels and Behavior
Seven in ten (70%) of Canadians say they’ve made a financial donation to a charity or a non-profit organization in the past twelve months. This figure is up four points since 2015, and has now rebounded back to pre-2015 levels.
The increase has come primarily from significant increases among those aged 25 to 34, lower household income (which makes sense with more younger donors) and among men.
While there was a higher percentage of Canadians who gave in 2017, those who did give are giving less. Donors gave an average of $772 in 2017 compared to an average of $924 in 2015 compared to an average of $726 in 2013.
Donors are most likely to donate to charities benefiting their local community (53%), followed by national causes and impact (31%), the international community (9%) and developing countries (4%). These figures are similar to 2015.
Social services and health charities continue to top the list as the charities to which Canadians donated to in the past 12 months (59% and 57% of Canadians, respectively, have donated to these types of charities) and, also health charities are the most prevalent type of charities to which they last donated (25%).
A large majority of donors have consistently reported donating to multiple charities with 80% giving to two or more charities (44% gave to 2-3 causes, 23% to 4-5 causes, and 13% to 6 or more causes); 18 percent donate to only one cause.
About half of Canadians (46%) indicate that they are very likely to donate in the next 12 months and another 34 percent are somewhat likely. However, six in ten Canadians (59%) say (16% strongly/42% somewhat) they’re concerned about how well the economy is doing and are re-assessing how much they plan to give to charity as a result. Canadians continue to be split on reaction to increased tax breaks for charitable donation – with 52 percent saying it may or would influence them to donate more, and 47 percent saying it would not have an impact.
Volunteerism
One-third of Canadians volunteered their time to a charity or non-profit in the past 12 months and spent an average of 88 hours. The average number of volunteer hours is down from 110 in 2015. The downturn in volunteering is most prominent among men (28%, down 6 points), Baby Boomers (29%, down 9 points), and residents of Ontario (34%, down 7 points).
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.
