1999 Private Charitable Generosity Index: Section Two: 1999 Private Generosity Index

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The following section contains the rankings, index scores, and underlying data for the three components of the Private Charitable Generosity Index for the Canadian provinces for 1996.

Donors to Tax Filers

This component measures the prevalence of charitable donations within a particular region by comparing the percent of tax filers who have made charitable contributions. Table 1 contains the data, scores, and ranking for the Canadian provinces. Figure 1 illustrates the index scores for this measure of individual generosity.

Both the underlying data and the index scores show little variation among the provinces in terms of the proportion of tax filers who made charitable contributions. Manitoba achieved the top ranking, while Newfoundland received the lowest ranking by 8.0 percentage points. In general, anywhere between one-quarter and one-third of the tax filers in each province made charitable contributions.

Charitable Donations as a Percent of Private Income

The second component of the Generosity Index measures the value of donations. Rather than using the dollar value of the donation, the Generosity Index measures the value of charitable donations as a percent of private income. As mentioned above, charitable donations as a percent of private income controls for the level of income, and thus allows for comparisons between relatively wealthy jurisdictions and less wealthy ones.

Donations are calculated as a percent of private income as opposed to gross income, since individuals and families can only donate the money to which they have access. Private income is an indication of the money left in private citizens’ hands after government has extracted tax revenue. Table 2 contains the data and index scores for charitable donations as a percent of private income. Figure 2 graphically depicts the index scores for this variable.

There is slightly more variation in the performance of the provinces in the second component of individual generosity than in the first. All of the provinces except for Quebec perform relatively well. Manitoba had the highest level of charitable donations as a percent of private income at 1.28 percent. Alberta ranks ninth with 0.99 percent of private income donated to registered charities, a difference of 0.29 percentage points. Quebec receives the lowest ranking, with only 0.59 percent of private income donated to charities.

The top three ranked provinces for the second component are the same three provinces that received the top rankings for the first component of the Generosity Index. That is, Manitoba (1st), Prince Edward Island (2nd), and Saskatchewan (3rd) were ranked in the same positions for both components of the Generosity Index.

Per Capita Charitable Volunteer Hours

The third component of the Generosity Index captures a different aspect of generosity than the first two. Per capita volunteering measures the level of non-monetary generosity, while the first two components measure monetary generosity.

Per capita volunteer hours gauges the amount of volunteer time donated to registered charities in each province on a per person basis.5 The measure only captures formal volunteering for registered charities and therefore excludes informal volunteering and volunteering for non-profit organizations that are not registered charities. Table 3 and Figure 3 present the per capita volunteer hours recorded by registered charities in each of the provinces.

Two patterns emerge from the results contained in table 3. The first is that there appears to be a regional slant to the per capita volunteering results. Four of the three Western provinces are ranked in the top three positions, while Manitoba tied Nova Scotia for fifth position. Meanwhile, the Maritime provinces generally ranked in the bottom half.

The second pattern relates to income. The so-called "have," or wealthy provinces, namely British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, dominate the top rankings for per capita volunteering while the "have-not," or poor provinces, are generally at the bottom of the rankings.

1999 Private Charitable Generosity Index Scores

The overall Generosity Index is calculated by combining the three components in equal proportion. In other words, the overall Generosity Index is the average score of the components. Table 4 lists the provinces in the order of their performance on the index scores, and figure 4 shows the index scores for each of the provinces.

A number of interesting patterns emerge from the table 4 index scores. Like the per capita volunteering results, there is a definite regional slant to the scores. First, the scores of the top four provinces, which also happen to be the four Western provinces, are extremely close to one another. A marginal improvement or decline in any one of the province’s respective scores could dramatically alter the top rankings. Similarly, the Atlantic provinces score very close to one another.

Income levels also re-appear as a prominent trend in the overall index scores. The so-called "have," or wealthy, provinces (British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario) generally seem to be more generous than the "have-not," or poorer provinces.

Interestingly, Manitoba ranked fourth overall, but scored first in two of the three components. Manitoba did not rank first overall because of its rather weak performance (score of 5.0) in per capita volunteer hours. Saskatchewan ranked first overall chiefly because of its stable ranking. In fact, its stable ranking gave Saskatchewan first place when it actually ranked third in all three components.

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