Newsflash: People still use the mail to donate to charity.
Driving the news: Local charities including Salvation Army and United Way chapters have warned that the ongoing Canada Post strike — which doesn’t look like it’ll be over any time soon — could cause a steep drop in donations during the most charitable time of the year.
Why it matters: This may be surprising, but many donors still give by mail. Calgary housing charity Inn From the Cold gets 40% of its annual donations from mailed cheques, while Food Banks Mississauga received 33% of its donations last December via the mail.
- This is partially due to charities running campaigns designed to make it easy to donate through the mail, like the annual key tag campaign by Vancouver charity TB Vets.
- It also shows how reliant charities are on seniors (do you know any Gen Zers or Millennials writing cheques), many of whom might not feel comfortable giving online.
Big picture: Strike-related struggles just scratch the surface of Canada’s charity problems. Per a Statistics Canada report this year, charitable giving in Canada fell in 2022 for the first time since 2016, with both total donations and number of donors falling.—QH