By Jasdeep Sandhu
“…we are still working tirelessly to meet the increasing demand for help, and to do this we still need donations.”
(John Bickert, President of CFTW)
Introduction
It is impossible to look into the future and view the lasting impacts Covid-19 will cause on our society. However, we can look back, a little over 100 years ago the Spanish flu entered Calgary by train, coming in with soldiers returning from WW1. The death toll for the Spanish flu was 3300 in Alberta, with majority of deaths coming from First Nation communities1.Compare this to today, April 7th 2021, the death toll of Covid-19 has reached 2002, and an end does not seem clear2. Soon after the Spanish Flu ended, the Great Depression erupted, the fear of another collapse mirroring that of the 1930’s is prevalent. Even 100 years ago, masks were made mandatory, and multiple lockdowns were imposed, oddly we see a similar response today, indicating while other areas of medicine may have grown, our understanding on controlling pandemics remains limited. In this blog I hope to display the impacts pandemics have on the economy and how they effect charitable organizations.
The Direct on Impact on Charities
Charitable foundations are essential for millions around the globe, through the generosity of complete strangers, these organizations can perform miracles like provide healthcare, provide education, to other causes such as protecting our wildlife. Their impact on those dealing with Covid-19 related losses is unmeasurable, but how has the pandemic repaid them?
As of February 2021, 8 % of charities are still temporarily closed, while 77% are operating with modifications, the rest are open as usual3. Compared to April 2020, 55% of charities have seen a decrease in revenue, from -43% to -49%3. 26% of Canadian charities saw an increase in demand, even though majority of them either lost or remained constant for capacity, this creates a pessimistic outlook for charity leaders3. It appears Education/Health related charities have seen the largest increase in demand with a decrease in capacity3. The largest change seems to appear within the revenue sources, Event based, and major donor fundraising have decreased by 67% and 35% respectively, while Online and Federal government funding have increased by 21% and 32%3.
Who is the Average Donor and how has the Coronavirus impacted them?
How have the lives of our supporters and their ability to provide us aid been altered?
This brings us to the average donor profile. After the Covid 19 pandemic, roughly 44% of donors reported mainly donating to Educational purposes, with Social reasons coming in seconds at 33.9%, and Religious in the last position at only 1.8% 4. A little over half indicated that the emotional impact was the most important factor when determining whether or not to donate, interestingly above the “Importance of the fundraising’s cause which only 26.8% of the sample reported 4. Lastly when characterizing the average donor contributing to international charity, Rajan et al reported the individuals as “Women, volunteers, and individuals of non-Canadian origin, with higher income, higher education, higher level of religiosity, higher political awareness and participation, and higher frequency of extended family participation”1. This brings upon the question, how has the Covid 19 pandemic which has disrupted the incomes of many particularly women altered their abilities to make their usual donations? We can look towards the Spanish flu, which reported roughly a 10% loss in income, accompanied with an 8% loss of consumption5. Interestingly, the prediction for the decrease in income in 2020 recorded being about 6.7%, however, consumption dropped a startingly 18%. With natural crisis such as pandemics, we can be almost certain that there is a correlation between the decrease in spending as economic
uncertainty rises6.
What do the Charities think?
Charities are struggling to keep up with the increasing amount of people who are suffering. What does the pandemic look like from the perspective
of a President of a CRA registered charity?
For us here at CFTW, this decrease in funds was seen immediately. Prior to the first shutdown, majority of our revenue came from face-to-face contact, and events. With the pandemic, we have had to increased social media usage, and began interacting more through this
website. Interestingly, while the number of donors has decreased the size of the average donation has increased. As a charity, it has been difficult
reaching out to the population size we were able to reach in 2019. Many of our previous donors, chose not to make a returning donation last year.
This can be associated with economic instability and the fact that people simply have less to give, however, it can also be associated with the idea,
that just like other business we may have ceased operating too. This is false we are still working tirelessly to meet the increasing demand for help, and to do this we still need donations.
1 https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/alberta-1918-spanish-flu-history-covid19coronavirus
2 https://www.alberta.ca/covid-19-alberta-data.aspx
3 https://www.imaginecanada.ca/sites/default/files/Sector-Monitor-Ongoing-Effects-COVID-19-Pandemic-EN.pdf
4 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/AlexandraMaftei/publication/343904391_The_more_you_have_the_less_y
ou_give_Prospective_donation_behavior_for_COVID19_causes/links/5f473ff792851c6cfde47353https://www.imaginecanada.ca/sites/default/files/Sector-Monitor-Ongoing-Effects-COVID-19-Pandemic-EN.pdf
5 https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10198-020-01206-8.pdf
6 https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28625/w28625.pdf
