Is giving $20 a week generous? Fresh 2022 giving data

$20 cash in an envelope for the weekly offering. Quite common.

Question: is $20 weekly more or less generous than the typical Canadian donor?

Answer: it’s more generous. The majority of Canadians don’t give at all in a receiptable way.

$20 per week is $1,000 a year. The typical Canadian donor gives $380 annually, according to 2022 taxfiler information recently released by Statistics Canada. $380 is a median - half of the donors give more than $380 and half give less. That’s total to all causes.

$20 a week is more generous than the typical Canadian donor.

But wait, Statistics Canada says $380 a year is typical? You know people who give more than $380 every month!

It gets complicated because a small group of older religious donors does most of the giving. Let’s dive a little deeper.

What about older donors?

Older people who attend religious services regularly give the most. The same Statistics Canada data says that Canadian donors aged 65+ gave an average of $3,240 in 2022.

Hang on to your hats here because average is not the same as median. Maybe take several swigs of coffee? We can do this!

In 2022, Canadians claimed over $11 billion dollars in charitable donations. 34% of donors were aged 65+ and they gave over $5.4 billion. [1,684,145 donors x $3,240 average giving = $5.4 billion]. The average is simply the total divided by the number of donors. I wish I knew the median, but by any measure, this is a generous group!

Older donors give more than younger donors

If you’re really sharp today, you’ll say - hey, older donors gave $5.4 billion out of $11 billion. That’s almost half of the total donations. Correct! 48% of the total giving in 2022 came from our most senior givers. It’s disproportionate because only 34% of donors were over 65. Older donors gave more than younger donors.

From this perspective, the $20 weekly in an envelope is more generous than the typical Canadian, but not as generous as some of the faithful senior saints carrying many churches and charities.

That might be more than enough numbers for one blog post! If you’re really keen, check out the source data below.

Gratitude

If you retain no numbers at all from this post, could you simply remember that most Canadians don’t give at all (in a receiptable way)? Please thank the generous givers who support your church or charity. It’s their countercultural generosity which supports your ministry.

Source data

These are fresh numbers, 2022 taxfiler data released in March 2024:

Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0130-01  Summary of charitable donors

Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0002-01  Tax filers with charitable donations by sex and age