As a relatively prosperous, progressive Western democracy, Canada is a good yardstick for measuring how the general public respond to charity organisations and charitable requests. So just how generous are Canadians. The following information is derived from a variety of sources which are widely available, most of which are aggregated on a website called thecharitiesfile.ca. Some of the stats are a little dated, reaching back as far as 2003.
It’s a useful insight into how many charities there are, what sector they belong to, where the money comes from and what the big totals are. The following is split up into Employees and Volunteers, Donors and Organisations.
Employees and Volunteers
- Charities in Canada employ around 2 million people, around 50% of which are part time workers.
- Voluntary workers contribute around 2 billion hours annually, which translates to about 1 million full time jobs.
- More than 40% of organisations are pretty small; 40% have between 0 and 5 paid workers and are run largely by volunteers.
- More than 25% of Canadians over the age of 15 volunteer for a charitable organisation every year, which totals just over 1 billion hours.
- 75% of voluntary hours are contributed by 25% of the volunteers.
Donors
- About 50% of all donors have a post-graduate or university degree.
- 85% of the Canadian population over the age of 15 donated to charity in 2006.
- Households with annual incomes of less than $20,000 contributed a higher percentage of their income than those with greater incomes. An online casino will also receive a small amount.
- The three provinces/territories with the greatest proportion of the population donating to charity were Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island at 93%. Nunavut has the lowest percentage of donators at 63%.
- However Nunavut also has the highest per capita donations by some distance at around $400 per annum.
- Around 50% of all money donated goes to religious charities, but health care receives the largest number of donations.
Organisations
- There are about 80,000 charities registered with the Canada Revenue Agency.
- There is an average of just over 500 charitable and non-profit organisations per 100,000 Canadians.
- Registered charities make up more than 50% of all non-profit organisations but more than 60% of the total revenue received.
- 90% of the 80,000 registered charities are actually charities, the other 10% is private and public foundations.
- Of that 90%, or 73,000, there are 32,000 religious charities, 13,000 welfare charities, 12,500 which are of benefit to the community, 12,000 devoted to education and 4,500 concerned with health care.
- Failure to file prompt tax returns means that around 2000 charities are de-registered each year, 40% of which re-apply for charitable status.
- Donations from members of the public actually make up a relatively small percentage of the total. The numbers are as follows: 49% is provided by local or federal government, 35% is earned from sources such as memberships and sales or merchandise, 13% comes from donations from individuals and other organisations.
It’s an interesting list and although a few of the figures are out of date, the percentages will remain relatively stable year upon year, as will a europa casino bonus.
Lastly, it’s worth mentioning that after the Asian tsunami of December 2004, Canadian citizens raised the astonishing sum of $20 million in the first four days following the disaster.