GivingBack
The GivingBack database explores how Canadians volunteer their time, donate money and provide in-kind gifts to charitable and non-profit organizations, with data available at the postal code and dissemination area levels. Based on Statistics Canada’s Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, the database profiles the philanthropic behaviour of Canadians and offers insights into why they support a particular cause. By combining GivingBack with PRIZM® data, users can segment their donor or alumni databases to allocate resources and develop relevant messages that will engage prospective audiences.
What’s New in 2026?
The refreshed database adds new insight into who Canadians help and how they get involved. New variables show volunteering that supports children under 15 and people with a disability, as well as volunteering that offers companionship or emotional support. You can also identify people who gave unpaid time because a school, employer, court or other organization required it, and see whether gifts to people or crowdfunding campaigns were made personally or jointly with a spouse or partner.
How it’s used
- Hospitals can use GivingBack to identify neighbourhoods with strong donor potential and run more effective fundraising campaigns by analyzing donation amounts and preferred donation channels, along with the motivations to donate within their community.
- Non-profit organizations can use GivingBack to determine which volunteer programs their PRIZM® target groups are more likely to join. Understanding that one group is more likely to prefer fundraising activities while another is more likely to prefer teaching or coaching can help an organization engage its members more effectively.
- University advancement teams can use GivingBack to strengthen major gift programs by identifying the communities most likely to make larger gifts to post-secondary institutions and understanding how those donors prefer to be approached.
Sample questions it can answer
- Who are my top donors, and what motivates them to give?
- What proportion of volunteers spend time working with more than one organization?
- What reasons keep people from volunteering or donating more?
- Do people volunteer instead of giving money, or the reverse?
- How does donation size to the arts vary with the length of time people have lived in a community?
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Segmentation
Create a comprehensive picture of your customers according to their shared demographic, lifestyle and behavioural traits. Discover where they live and understand their preferences to create more effective marketing strategies. In addition to custom segmentation services, we offer four off-the-shelf segmentation systems, including PRIZM, Canada’s leading consumer segmentation system.
Demographic
Reach your best customers, track neighbourhood growth patterns and forecast trends with demographic data covering age, sex, marital status, education, occupation, income, housing, cultural diversity and more. We offer five proprietary, privacy-complaint databases, which are built from multiple sources.