Younger people more likely to increase charity donations during pandemic: poll

A recent poll from Ipsos, conducted on behalf of the charity platform CanadaHelps, has provided insight into how some Canadians have balanced their charitable donations amid the COVID-19 pandemic, finding that the youngest demographic surveyed increased its donations the most.

The survey of 1,000 Canadians across the country over the age of 18 found that 12 per cent increased their donations to charity during the pandemic, in contrast to the 18 per cent who reduced how much they gave.

Twenty-five per cent of those surveyed reported that they do not give any money to charity and 45 per cent said they have not changed how much they give.

The poll data shows that those living in Saskatchewan and Manitoba (25 per cent) were most likely to reduce their charitable giving, followed by B.C. and Ontario (21 per cent), Alberta and Atlantic Canada (16 per cent) and Quebec (10 per cent).

Twenty-one per cent of women and 14 per cent of men scaled back their donations, according to the poll.

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“At a time when charities are facing an unprecedented demand for services, we would like to see more Canadians donating to charity,” said Marina Glogovac, President and CEO of CanadaHelps in a news release. “For nearly two years, many Canadian charities have had the challenging task of trying to meet increased demand for their services while facing significant drops in income and reduced capacity.”

In a breakdown, the poll shows that 17 per cent of respondents aged 18 to 34 increased their donations during the pandemic, compared to nine per cent of those aged 35 to 54 and 12 per cent of those 55 years and older.

Ontario residents were more likely to give more than before, at 15 per cent, followed by B.C. and Alberta at 13 per cent, Saskatchewan and Manitoba at 10 per cent, Quebec at nine per cent and the Atlantic provinces at six per cent.

The poll did not include data for the Territories.

“In our past Giving Reports we identified a concerning giving gap, with younger generations not giving as much to charity as older generations,” said Glogovac. “Insights from this new poll offer an encouraging sign that gives us much hope for the future.”

METHODOLOGY

The Ipsos poll was conducted between November 11 to 15, 2021 on behalf of CanadaHelps.org. A sample of 1,000 Canadians over the age of 18 were interviewed.

Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe.

The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ±3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadian adults been polled.

The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.