Often, I am asked about donor fatigue - the feeling expressed by donors that they are being asked too often and giving as much as they can. A couple of recent reports from Statistics Canada shed some light on this perception.

The Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating for 2004 was just released. According to this survey, which was conducted using telephone interviews with a statistically valid number of Canadians, 85% of Canadians over 15, or 22 million, said they made a financial contribution to a charity. Based on this survey, the average donation was $400 for a total of $8.9 billion. (This total appears to be derived from a simple extrapolation based on the average size of donation people said they gave, multiplied by the number of people who said they made a donation.)

Looking at these numbers, one can agree with the argument that people are suffering from donor fatigue. Just about everyone in Canada is making a contribution to charity. But, another set of statistics seems to contradict this conclusion. According to our tax returns, only 25% of filers claimed a deduction for a charitable donation in 2004 and the median donation was $230. The total given to charity according to our tax returns was $6.9 billion - about $2 billion less than what was extrapolated from the above report.

There are some things to take into consideration before jumping to too many conclusions about the difference between what people said they did (in response to survey questions) and what they actually did (hard numbers from tax returns). One explanation for some of the difference in the number of donors is that often people filing a tax return are claiming the deductions for donations made by two people, typically a husband and wife. But if this were true in every case, which it is not, that would bring the number of donors up to 50%, still well short of 85%.

An explanation for the difference in the total size of donations is that some people may make a donation and not claim it for a deduction on their tax return. If this is true, a huge number of donations, about $2 billion were not receipted. This seems hard to believe, especially since the survey asked people not to include change they threw in coin collection boxes in their definition of donations.

I'm sure there are other explanations for the discrepancy in the numbers. But it is also possible that there is a huge gap between perception and reality. People perceive themselves to be doing a lot more than they really are, supporting the popular notion of donation fatigue. The reality is that a relatively small number of people are donors, only 25% of people filing taxes, and half of those claimed a donation of under $230 (median means that half are under and half are over that amount). I don't know what the statistics are for other countries, but in Canada, when it comes to donor fatigue, as they say on TV - this myth is busted.