Christopher Dougherty
Christopher Dougherty is an MPNL alum and a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for the Study of Philanthropy & Public Good, University of St. Andrews, in the UK. He spoke to PANL Perspectives about his findings relating political contributions and charitable donations.
Question: What are the main factors in increased political contributions being correlated with increased charitable donations?
Christopher Dougherty: Charitable donations increase with age, gender, income and marital status. For example, women and married people are more likely to donate to charities. These factors have been consistent across cycles of Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating (GSS-GVP) and in the analysis done by David Lasby and Cathy Barr in the 30 Years of Giving in Canada report.
What wasn’t known is how these variables (except for gender) affect the likelihood of political contributions in Canada. My results, which used data from Ontario and Alberta in 2003-2017, show increases in likelihood for age, income and marital status that align with charitable giving likelihoods. Also, women are less likely than men to make a political contribution, and that shows up in my results.
See Christopher Dougherty’s two other Q&As with PANL Perspectives: (1) “Do Private Family Foundations Engage in Political Activities Through Their Granting?” and (2) “To What Extent Do Politicians Use Canada’s Nonprofit Sector to Access Constituencies and Political Power?”
Other things that weren’t known in Canada is whether the same people are giving to charity and making political contributions. My results show that each type of giving increases the likelihood of the other, but about ten times as many people make charitable gifts as make political contributions
Political context also affects both types of giving. Living in a more politically competitive riding makes it more likely that people will give to charity and politics, and people are also more likely to give to charity in election years.
On top of that, donations are more likely when people are more educated and when they attend religious services more often, but those variables aren’t included in the data set I used, so I wasn’t able to test whether they also influence political contributions.
Question: Your research is based on a huge amount of data from the Longitudinal Administrative Databank. What’s the LAD? And how much data does it have?
Christopher Dougherty: The LAD is a large dataset put together by Statistics Canada from individual tax returns (T1 forms). It contains a random selection of 20% of all Canadian tax filers (about 2.7 million Ontarians and 850,000 Albertans). Once an individual tax filer is in the dataset, they remain part of it until they stop filing taxes. This means that researchers can analyze how behaviour changes over time and can make clear connections between events, like elections, and behaviour, like donating to charity. The data in the LAD is protected, and research using it requires approval from Statistics Canada and can be done only in a secure research data centre.
Question: You write that this study is a first step to extending Charitable Triad Theory to political contributions. Can you explain?
Cassandra Chapman and her colleagues developed the Charitable Triad Theory, a fundraising framework about a complex interaction between donors, beneficiaries and fundraisers.
Christopher Dougherty: Charitable Triad Theory, developed by Dr. Cassandra Chapman and her colleagues, is a fundraising framework about a complex interaction between donors, beneficiaries and fundraisers. Things that increase the likelihood are having a beneficiary and fundraiser who speak to some part of the potential donor’s identity, like their gender, age, hobbies or political beliefs. Donations are less likely when these things aren’t aligned.
Because political contributions in Canada aren’t widely studied, partly because so few people make political contributions and partly because individuals and parties tend to keep political gifts quiet, there isn’t a lot of theory that’s specific to political donors. By showing that political contributions and charitable gifts are related and influenced by similar factors, my research can help other researchers use charitable giving theories to understand political giving.
Question: Your research suggests that being female decreases the likelihood of claiming a political contribution credit and increases the likelihood of claiming a charitable gift credit. Can you elaborate?
See “The Power of Women in Philanthropy Recording, Reports & Resources,” from an event featuring Canadian and US research about women in philanthropy. Photo is courtesy of Chris Czermak.
Christopher Dougherty: Women in Alberta and Ontario are less likely than men to make a political contribution, which is something that’s well established in Canadian political science. Women are also more likely to make a charitable gift. However, research is needed to figure out if this is because of how tax credits for the two types of giving are treated. For instance, charitable tax credits can be spread out within a household, and political credits have to be claimed by a single person up to the limit.
Christopher Dougherty is an MPNL alum and is a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for the Study of Philanthropy & Public Good, University of St. Andrews, in the UK, where he’s researching “The political expressiveness of charitable sectors in comparative perspective: Canada and its provinces and the UK and its countries.” Read his two other Q&As with PANL Perspectives: (1) “Do Private Family Foundations Engage in Political Activities Through Their Granting?” and (2) “To What Extent Do Politicians Use Canada’s Nonprofit Sector to Access Constituencies and Political Power?”
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Monday, February 17, 2025 in Data Discoveries, For homepage, News & Events, Research from Alumni
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