Here’s the new online portal that is building awareness around giving and volunteering data in Canada
Why It Matters
For years, charities and non-profits have had to interpret raw Statistics Canada data on their own. Increased access to in-depth analysis allows organizations to better access and utilize scarce resources.
Canadian non-profits and charities now have a powerful new tool at their disposal when seeking to make the most of donor and volunteer campaigns — the Canadian Knowledge Hub for Giving and Volunteering.
The recently launched website aims to help everyone, including non-profit professionals and businesses, better understand giving and volunteering trends in Canada by highlighting evidence-based data and analysis. More specifically, the online hub is intended to raise awareness of Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, also known as the GSS-GVP.
“There is a real opportunity across the sector to be thinking about the ways data can inform our work, our visioning and our strategic directions moving forward,” said Megan Conway, president and CEO of Volunteer Canada, which is leading the data-driven engagement initiative in partnership with Imagine Canada, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Ajah and the Volunteer Management Professionals of Canada.
Conway said information provided by the hub will help non-profits effectively use data as they plan their recruitment, volunteer and fundraising strategies. The ultimate goal is for organizations to better harness Canadians’ contributions — of both time and money — as they work to fulfil their respective missions.
This could prevent an organization from attempting to recruit older adults as volunteers for a cause where most engagement actually occurs in people between the ages of 30 and 45, or from targeting middle-aged donors, when families with young children might actually be more likely to give to that specific program.
The GSS-GVP’s objective is to collect national data on social trends related to individual contributory behaviours including volunteering, charitable giving and civic participation, while also informing the public and voluntary sectors about policy and program decisions that relate to charitable and volunteer organizations.
Launched in 1997 as a one-time National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, it’s now conducted every five years. Data is broken down into categories such as age, sex, education, geographic location, labour force status and household income.
However, without proper analysis, the raw data provided isn’t much use to the non-profit sector or anyone else.
“If you have the ability to analyze data, you can get the full data-set and you can do whatever you want,” said Cathy Barr, vice-president of research and strategic relationships at Imagine Canada, referring to strategic planning and campaigns. “But the vast majority of people don’t have that ability, so what this website does is provide a lot of analysis.”
Information on the site is presented as articles or stories that take a deep dive into a particular aspect of GSS-GVP data, such as the types of organizations Canadians volunteer with, how much time volunteers give, who donates, how much and by what method. Statistics are also broken down by province where possible.
“To us, this portal is a way to get information to organizations to help them make informed decisions, so they don’t just keep doing the same things over and over and over again, hoping for the best,” Barr said. A charity might run the same donation drive every winter holiday season, thinking it’s the best option, when in reality they’d see more success with a spring campaign.
“The population is changing. Canada does not have the same population it used to have and volunteering is also changing; donor behaviour is changing as well,” she added.
More analysis of 2018 GSS-GVP data is expected to be added to the portal in the coming months. New resources, such as information from previous surveys and other data sources, will also be integrated into the hub in the coming years. Those who visit the site are encouraged to take a survey to gauge how much awareness currently exists around the information Statistics Canada collects and provides.
Conway said further conversations and consultation will help determine how the portal, which has received funding from the federal government through the Social Development Partnerships Program of Employment and Social Development Canada, develops over the next three years.
“There’s a functionality aspect here that we want to understand, we want people to use the site and to find it helpful,” Conway said. “There are populations and communities which we need to do a better job of engaging and understanding.”
Barr said small and medium sized non-profits with fewer resources to conduct independent research before launching a donor or volunteer drive might be the biggest beneficiaries of the analysis provided by the Canadian Knowledge Hub for Giving and Volunteering.
She hopes better access to information prevents organizations from wasting time and effort on campaigns targeting people unlikely to give to, or volunteer for, their causes.
“It’s a very rich data-set and it can really be useful to understanding the environment you’re operating in,” she said. “And in today’s world, it’s important for charities and non-profits to be making informed decisions about what they do, how they do it, where they put their resources.”
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