AFP Canada Event — Two Declines, One Story: What the Data on Volunteering and Donating Tells Us About the Future of Giving in Canada

July 29, 2026 | 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. Eastern (Virtual)

Drawing on the GSS-GVP, the only longitudinal dataset that tracks giving and volunteering simultaneously at the national level, this session examines a striking pattern: every major measure of civic participation has declined between the most recent comparable survey cycles. Donor rates and volunteer rates have fallen together, and a substantial share of the volunteer hours that disappeared represents unreplaced civic labour with a meaningful economic floor. The webinar moves beyond the headline figures to surface what the data reveals about concentration risk, the withdrawal of early-career adults, and the structural implications for organizations that continue to manage volunteer engagement and donor development as separate functions.

Participants will:

• Interpret recent GSS-GVP trends in donor rates, volunteer rates, and overall civic participation, and identify the structural forces driving them.
• Apply a concentration-risk lens to their own volunteer and donor portfolios, recognizing the parallel concentration pattern across both sides of the sector.
• Reframe volunteer engagement as a leading indicator and pipeline strategy for fundraising, rather than a separate operational function.

This webinar will be delivered in English. Zoom supports real-time translation, which allows English audio to be displayed as French subtitles for participants who choose that option.