The Giving Report Shines Spotlight on Canada's Charitable Sector

CanadaHelps' new annual report shows a decline in charitable giving over past decade   

TORONTO, Nov. 9, 2017 /CNW/ - CanadaHelps, the country's largest platform for donating and fundraising online, today is proud to release The Giving Report, a new annual report that provides an in-depth and interactive look at the state of Canada's charitable sector.

"We created The Giving Report to give Canadians the information they need to better understand the charitable sector and its impact on the country," said Marina Glogovac, President and CEO, CanadaHelps. "We want to help people appreciate the enormous role charities play in their lives and the lives of their families. And we hope to inspire people to engage more, give more, and generally be more interested in the future of charities in Canada."

Diving deep into Statistics Canada research and tax data from the Canadian Revenue Agency, The Giving Report uncovers a number of trends and insights around charitable giving in Canada, including:

• Charitable giving in decline. When taking inflation into account, Canadians donated 7% less in 2015 than we did in 2006, a drop of roughly 600 million dollars. The proportion of Canadian families who make donations has eroded over the past decade from 45.3% of families in 2006 to 39.9% in 2015.
  
  
• More high-income families. Less charitable giving. The number of high-income families in Canada jumped 8.1%, 10.2% and 8.4% among $150K-$199K, $200K-$249K and $250K families, respectively, from 2006 to 2015. However, these three high-income group families also saw the greatest decline in average donation amount, dropping between 3-4% each in the past decade.
  
  
• Small charities rely on charitable donations. Eighty per cent of the roughly 85,000 charities in Canada reported under $500,000 in revenue in 2015. While Receipted Gifts (from individual and corporate donations) accounted for only 7% of the overall Canadian charitable sector revenue in 2015, small charities (revenues under $500,000) relied on Receipted Gifts for 43% of their total revenue.
  
  
• Online giving on the rise. While Canadians are making fewer charitable donations overall, online giving increased 22.5% per year on CanadaHelps' platform from 2006 to 2015. This is indicative of the ease of online giving and the rapid pace to which all commerce is moving digital.
  
  
• Monthly giving making an impact. Canadians are using online platforms to set up monthly donations to causes they care about, providing charities a more predictable revenue stream and avoiding scrambling at year's end for a charitable tax receipt. For instance, the average contribution ($669) from people who made monthly donations was over two times higher than those who made one-time donations ($322) via CanadaHelps in 2015.

For added context into the data and to learn more about the state of charitable giving in Canada, you can read The Giving Report in its entirety at: www.CanadaHelps.org/en/The-Giving-Report. 

As a charitable social enterprise itself and a leader and innovator in the charitable sector, CanadaHelps aims to build capacity of charities of all sizes through its education and online fundraising platform while connecting Canadians to charities and causes they care about. By making information readily available to donors, the organization hopes to build trust in Canada's charitable sector, allowing people to invest strategically when making donations.  

About CanadaHelps.org
CanadaHelps.org allows donors to quickly and safely donate and fundraise online for any registered Canadian charity and provides charities the secure online fundraising platform they need to succeed. CanadaHelps has facilitated over $800 million in donations to Canadian charities online since it launched in 2000. Over 1.6 million Canadians have donated to charities using CanadaHelps and over 18,000 Canadian charities fundraise using the CanadaHelps online tools. The mission of CanadaHelps is to inform, inspire and connect donors and charities and to democratize access to effective technology and education in the charitable sector.  www.canadahelps.org 

SOURCE CanadaHelps

For media inquiries, please contact: Madison Francis, High Road, 416-644-2276, [email protected]; Shannon Craig, CanadaHelps, 416-628-6948 x2390, [email protected]