More Canadians are showing signs of willingness to dig deeper into their wallets for charitable causes, a survey from one of Canada's major banks suggested Wednesday.
The online poll from BMO Harris Private Banking found that 79 per cent of those surveyed had made a charitable donation at some point in the past 12 months.
The figure was up sharply from 2011 levels when just 68 per cent of respondents had made contributions.
Poll respondents also indicated they were writing larger cheques than they had in recent years. The average donation amount rose to $557 in 2012 from $487 the year before.
The news initially came as a surprise to Marvi Ricker, BMO's managing director of philanthropic services. Global economic turbulence that has kept markets in flux may seem an unlikely backdrop for a spike in charitable donations, she conceded.
But while Canadians have enjoyed comparative economic stability, Ricker said the international turmoil has served as a harbinger of things to come.
"We know we have years of austerity ahead of us," Ricker said in reference to cost-cutting measures by provincial and federal governments. "I think people are recognizing that if they want to have the quality of society that we've gotten used to, individuals are going to have to contribute more."
Cathy Barr, vice-president of charity watchdog Imagine Canada, said that recognition would come as a relief to the country's charitable organizations.
Charity leaders are alarmed at the prospect of losing government funding at a time of fiscal restraint, Barr said. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced on Tuesday a balanced budget is unlikely to materialize until 2016 or 2017, adding a projected deficit of $21.1 billion is likely to grow to $26 billion by next March.
Barr said many of the heads of Canada's charities predict their groups will be weaker in the short term, adding a growing number have forecasted lower revenues and staffing levels. "Charity leaders tend to be a fairly optimistic bunch. Even at the height of the recession, they were very optimistic," Barr said. "This is the first time we've really started to see a sign of waning confidence."
The online survey by Polara sampled 1,000 Canadians between Nov. 2 and 5. The polling industry's professional body, Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population like traditional telephone polls.
