Recently, Statistics Canada posted their yearly update to their lovely dataset: “Summary of charitable donors”. I really like it, because it gives you a stark perspective on the state of trackable charitable giving in Canada.
I’ve been following it yearly and used this year’s update to refresh a dashboard that allows you to explore yearly trends in the various metrics they make available. Before I had this data, I admit I was concerned that 2020 would not have been such a great year as far as taxfiler reported donations went. I’m happy to say I was wrong! When you look at the Canada-wide stats, it’s clear that Canadian donors (if they gave at all) opened their wallets and gave generously! Sadly, the downward trend in terms of % taxfilers who donated continued unabated in 2020, so that didn’t change!!
I hope you enjoy this!
A few notes for you to ponder as you explore:
- % Taxfilers Who Donated: This shows you to percentage of everyone who lives in that geographical area who reported charitable giving. This makes for a more fair comparison vs. raw # of donors.
- Donation $ per Income $: This is the ratio of median donation dollars to median income. I like it because it allows us to see a yearly trend of how generous people were feeling in their charitable giving despite yearly fluctuations in the economy.
- Is the overall amount of money donated in Canada increasingly resting on the shoulders of our oldest citizens?
- The percent of taxfilers reporting charitable giving is declining in EVERY province, and almost every metropolitan area. This has been an ongoing problem and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to get better.
- What is it about Manitoba and PEI? They seem to have the best measurements when it comes to median donation dollars per $10k in income!