When it comes to making donations to charity, Canadians with the means to do so are a stingy lot. Half of Canadian adults who made donations in 2000 gave less than $74. But at least they gave something; 22 per cent of Canadians did not make a charitable donation. Counting just the wealthiest of Canadians – people from households with $100,000 or more in annual income – 57 per cent donated less than $177 to charities.

The major source of information about charitable giving is Caring Canadians, Involved Canadians: the National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating. The latest survey was conducted in the autumn of 2000 and included a sample of Canadians aged 15 years and older. (When statistics here refer to "Canadians," they are 15 or older, unless otherwise stated.) The previous survey was in 1997. Statistics Canada also uses the information on income tax returns but that only tracks donations for which a tax credit is claimed.

In 2000, Canadians claimed a tax credit for $5.4 billion in charitable donations, an inflation-adjusted increase of 9.2 per cent from 1999. In the 2000 survey, Canadians reported donating a total of $4.9 billion to charities. That's an increase of 11 per cent from 1997. According to the tax data, donations increased 27 per cent from 1997 to 2000. Nelson Lynch, fund-raising manager for St. Christopher House in Toronto, expects that the survey would under-report the total amount of donations because the extremely wealthy would likely be under-represented in the survey sample.

According to the survey, another $100 million went into charity cash boxes at stores and elsewhere. Canadians spent another $1.2 billion playing bingo or buying goods like Girl Guide cookies and raffle tickets, where the profits went to charities.

Between 1997 and 2000 the median donation fell $3 to $76 but the average donation went up $10 to $259. (The median is the middle point, so in this case half the donors gave $76 and above and half gave $76 and below. In discussing donors, the median is more significant than the average.) In both years, 78 per cent of Canadians surveyed said they made a charitable donation. Donors each made an average of 3.7 separate donations during 2000.

English as a Second Language class in Toronto

The median donation claimed on income tax returns is $190, probably reflecting that people donating smaller amounts are less likely to claim a tax credit. And just 26 per cent of taxfilers claimed a donation. Here there's a big difference between the data from the tax returns versus the survey. With 45 per cent of the donors surveyed indicating they, or another member of their household, would claim the tax credit, the survey results indicate there should be another three million Canadians reporting donations on their tax returns than actually do so. Statistics Canada notes that "taxfilers are permitted to claim both their donations and those made by their spouses to get better tax benefits" but it seems unlikely the number doing so was anywhere near three million couples.

Younger donors, those aged 15-34, have increased significantly the amount of money they donate to charity, while those over 65 have decreased the amount they give. The median donation is up for the age groups between 15 and 34 but down in all the older age groups. Women, people with more formal education and higher incomes are more likely to be donors. (Click here and a table from the 2000 survey report, Caring Canadians, Involved Canadians, will open in a new window.)

Percentage of household income spent on donations by level of household income, Canadians aged 15 and older, 1997 and 2000      source: National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2000

Not surprisingly, higher household income correlates with larger donations but in proportion to household income, Canadians with lower incomes are more generous, as the graph on the right shows. The average Canadian donates less than one per cent of pre-tax income to charity.

Just 20 per cent of Canadians gave $213 or more but they accounted for 82 per cent of the total value donated to charities. These major donors gave to religious organizations in a big way. A study of major donors using data from the 1997 survey found that 56 per cent of the money these donors contributed went to religious organizations. Those major donors who gave to religious organizations gave those organizations $590 on average. International organizations ranked second but the average donation from major donors was just $187.

Religious factors show up in the data as the most significant determinant in charitable giving. Donors with religious affiliations gave twice as much as donors with no religious affiliation. The 11 per cent who said they are very religious were responsible for 29 per cent of all donations. The 1997 survey looked at donors by religious attenders. Weekly attenders gave most of their donations to religious organizations but their average donation to non-religious organizations was still higher than the average donation to all organizations made by non-attenders and infrequent attenders.

The charities

Religious organizations receive half of all the money Canadians donate to charities. Health organizations, a group that includes hospitals and

Type of charitable organization	Value of total donations
Religious	49%
Health	20%
Social services	10%
Philanthropy & voluntarism	6%
Education & research	3%
Culture, arts and recreation	3%
Source: National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2000 and 1997

organizations doing public health education, and social service organizations also receive a significant share of Canadians' donations. Environmental, international and other types of charitable organizations not on the table received less than three per cent.

Health organizations received the highest number of donations, accounting for 41 per cent, more than twice as many as the next highest type of organization (social services).

Painting at St. Christopher House, a community organization in Toronto

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