Canada Volunteerism Initiative - Final Report
Appendix B
National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating Analysis:
Implications for Volunteerism
I. INTRODUCTION
Purpose and Context
Set out below are selected highlights of factors and trends identified through a comparative analysis of findings from the 1997 and 2000 editions of the National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating (NSGVP). Conducted by Statistics Canada as a supplement to the Canada Labour Force Survey, the NSGVP is based on a representative sample of 14,724 Canadians aged 15 years and older and reflects a 63% response rate.
The selected highlights in this analytical report focus on principal areas of concern about the directions in which volunteering in Canada may be heading. The object is to help identify possible policy and strategic issues of interest to the Canada Volunteerism Initiative (CVI) which is seeking to establish measures to promote the effective engagement and support of volunteers in Canada, as part of a broader and long-term Voluntary Sector Initiative (VSI) being pursued jointly by the federal government and the voluntary sector in Canada.
Using virtually the same methodology, the questions on which the 1997 and 2000 surveys focused concerned the proportion of Canadians who volunteer (volunteer rate), the number of volunteers and the hours they contributed, the distribution of the volunteer 'workload,' and factors that motivate people to volunteer and are associated with volunteering (religious affiliation) or stand in their way. Within these questions, the survey shed light on the characteristics of volunteers (age, sex, marital status, education, labour force status, and household income) and provided a provincial breakdown of volunteering patterns.
The NSGVP provides a series of snapshots of volunteering, helping to identify issues of concern and areas warranting more in depth investigation and research.
Highlights of Key Findings
The survey clearly shows that volunteering declined significantly between 1997 and 2000 in nearly every meaningful measure. The proportion and number of volunteers and the hours devoted to volunteering are all down from 1997. The decline is evident for men and women regardless of age, marital status, education, labour force status or household income. Volunteering declined in every province except PEI, where there was a slight increase. Although volunteer hours declined by 5%, the 7% of Canadians who account for 73% of the hours increased their average hours volunteered per year.
The survey revealed that, while volunteering was down, there was an 11% increase in financial contributions to charitable and similar organizations. At first glance this might suggest that there has been a convenient trade-off, with a rise in giving offsetting a decline in volunteering. However, it is not known whether this increase in giving may have reduced the need for volunteers in some sectors or organizations (i.e., by providing more resources to engage paid staff). Nor is it known if the increased giving translated into an increased capacity for those sectors and organizations to in fact recruit more volunteers than they otherwise would, meaning that - in the absence of the increased giving - the volunteering rates might have been even lower than the 2000 results reveal.
Note on the Reliability of the NSGVP Results
While many participants in the Joint Table consultations stated that the survey results were consistent with what was happening in their organization, some participants wondered whether methodology or other factors might have led the 2000 NSGVP to overstate the decline in voluntary participation. Others wondered whether the 1997 NSGVP, conducted when unemployment was higher than in 2000 (and when more people presumably had more time to volunteer), might have captured an unusually high point in recent volunteer participation. Still others wondered about other possible explanations for overstating the problem.
There are methodological limitations in any survey and perhaps some errors as well. These can lead to overstating or understating the real state of affairs. It is worth noting however, that even if the survey overstated the decline in numbers of Canadians volunteering from 1997 to 2000 by 20% - an unheard of error - there would still be about 800,000 fewer Canadians volunteering in 2000 than in 1997. If, on the other hand, the survey understated the decline by 20%, the drop in numbers of Canadians volunteering from 1997 to 2000 would be 1.2 million. Either way, the decline in volunteer participation in such a short period is massive, a conclusion reinforced by the fact that all groups of Canadians in virtually every province reduced their contributions as volunteers.
II. ANALYSIS OF SELECTED FACTORS AND TRENDS
Volunteering Rates
- The national volunteering rate - the proportion of the Canadian population 15 years and older who participated in at least one volunteer activity in the year before the survey - declined from 31.4% in 1997 to 26.7% in 2000. That represents a 15% drop in the volunteering rate over the three-year period.
- In the period 1997-2000 the volunteering rate declined regardless of age, sex, marital status, education, labour force status and income.
- Some of the largest declines in the volunteering rates - in absolute and proportional terms - were evident in several of the traditional strongholds of volunteerism. For example, for the five population segments that demonstrated the highest rates of volunteerism in 1997* the proportional drop in volunteering rates ranged from 13% to 25% in the three-year period - the latter almost double the average national decline.
