Report highlights multiyear decline in donations but which provinces give more?
Fewer Canadians are making donations to charity and those that do are giving less.
A new report from the Fraser Institute shows that the proportion of tax filers who donated to charity fell to its lowest point in 20 years, according to analysis of data from tax returns for 2022, the most recent year of comparable data.
The 17.1% who donated is a significant decrease from the peak of 25.4% in 2004. Charitable giving had been increasing since at least 2002. But the share of tax filers donating has been coupled with a decrease in the percentage of aggregate income donated, which was 0.61% in 2002 but fell to 0.50% in 2022.
“Canadians are consistently less charitable every year, which means charities face greater challenges to secure resources to help those in need," said Jake Fuss, director of Fiscal Studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of Generosity in Canada: The 2024 Generosity Index.
Breaking down the nationwide stats, the highest share of donors in 2022 was in Manitoba (19.3%) which also had the highest percentage of income donated (0.71%). Conversely, Nunavut had the smallest share of donors (5.2%) and the lowest share of income donated (0.15%). However, expressed in dollars, the average donation was larger in Nunavut than in Manitoba ($2,886 vs. $2,637).
The largest average donation in dollar terms was from Albertans at $3,438, followed by BC at $2,997, and Northwest Territories at $2,984.
“Your wealthiest clients are often your most philanthropic clients. They are the clients who are most important to you, and you need to be the most important to them,” he said. “When you engage with them on the things that they actually care about, the causes and issues that matter to them, it becomes a stickier, healthier, and closer relationship.”
