Volunteering Trends - Canada, 1997 to 2003

The Institute of WellBeing has taken on the challenging task of developing a Canadian Index of WellBeing (CIW).  A number of the key indicators relate to community vitality; the table below was developed in that context.  The Institute reports that:

• 61% of Canadians were members of non-profit, voluntary organizations in 2003, up from 51% in the late 1990s
• 33% of Canadians volunteered with non-profit and charitable organizations in 2003; this was up from 31% in 1997, although the proportion had fallen to 27% in 2000.

Rate of Volunteering by Province - 1997, 2000, 2003

% volunteering with non-profit, voluntary organizations

population aged 15 and older

	1997	2000	2003
Canada	31%	27%	33%
Newfoundland	33	31	40
Prince Edward Island	36	37	40
Nova Scotia	38	34	38
New Brunswick	34	29	35
Quebec	22	19	23
Ontario	32	25	35
Manitoba	40	36	39
Saskatchewan	47	42	45
Alberta	40	39	39
British Columbia	32	26	37

Source: http://www.ciw.ca/Librairies/Documents/FirstReportOfTheInstituteOfWellbeing.sflb.ashx

Volunteering for Sports, Recreation, Arts and Culture - Canada, 2004 and 2007

In both 2004 and 2007, Statistics Canada conducted surveys of donor and volunteer behaviour among Canadians - for Imagine Canada and Volunteer Canada. Almost 12.5 milion Canadians or 46% of the population aged 15 and over. volunteered for charitable and non-profit organizations in 2007. Collectively, these volunteers contributed just over 2.1 billion volunteer hours, equivalent to almost 1.1 million full-time jobs. Trends:

• the number of volunteers increase from 2004 to 2007 by 669,000 or 5.7% - partly due to a population increase of 3.7% over the same period
• the volunteer rate increased from 45% of the population in 2004 to 46% in 2007.
• volunteer hours increased by 84 million hours or 4.2% from 2004 to 2007 - however the average number of volunteer hours per volunteer remained about the same. The median number of hours volunteered fell by 5 - from 61 hours in 2004 to 56 hours in 2007.

Sports and recreation shares the limelight with social services and religion for having the highest volunteer rate (11%) and percentage of total volunteer hours (18%). Volunteering for arts and culture is much lower at 3% volunteering and 4% of the total volunteer hours - similar to volunteering for health, environment, hospitals, and law/advocacy/politics.

The average number of volunteer hours per volunteer over the year decreased somewhat from 2004 to 2007 for both recreation/sport and arts/culture.

Average Volunteer Hours by organization type
volunteers aged 15 and over- 2004 and 2007

Organization Type	2004	2007
Religion	126	141
Sports and Recreation	122	119
Social Service	117	114
Arts and Culture	120	107
Hospitals	114	107
Law, Advocacy, Politics	123	104
Development and Housing	98	99
Business/Professional Associations, Unions	106	91
Environment	98	88
Education and Research	74	79
Health	55	52
Grant-making, fundraising and voluntarism promotion	48	44

Source: http://www.givingandvolunteering.ca/files/giving/en/csgvp_highlights_2007.pdf