To investigate whether the presence of one or more registered charities within the borders of a reserve helps improve community outcomes, we amalgamate data from three major sources: administrative data from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) on registered charities; confidential data from the 2001, 2006 and 2016 Census Surveys and the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS); and the CWB Index 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016 provided by ISC. The central idea is to match the six-digit postal codes of charitable organizations to the census subdivisions (CSDs) that correspond to an Indigenous community.
To issue tax receipts to donors, charities must register with the CRA and are obliged to file annually a T3010 Registered Charity Information Return. To match with the five-year intervals of the census and CWB Index, we restrict data on charities to the years 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015. Charities must file their tax return within six months of their fiscal year end, to avoid inconsistency problems we use the year prior to the census data collection since the income variables in the censuses and NHS refer to the previous calendar year. The T3010 provides a unique identifier for each charity, with name and location, its programs, and financial activities. The CRA differentiates between six different types of charities: benefits to communities, education, health, religious, welfare and other charities.
About 5% of the Canadian population or 1.8 million people, identify as Indigenous according to the 2021 census; they belong to one of three groups: First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. First Nations represent 58% of the Indigenous population and live both on and off reserves. Métis primarily descend from European colonizers and First Nations peoples, and count for 35% of the Indigenous population. Inuit constitute 4% of the Indigenous population, and live mainly in communities in Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Northern Quebec (Nunavik) and Labrador (Statistics Canada, 2022). First Nation communities recognized as “on-reserve” by the AANDC, and Inuit communities, can be tracked both in the census and NHS via a unique CSD identifying number. There are about 700 Indigenous communities, spanning some 900 Census Sub-Divisions.
A First Nation reserve is usually contained in one CSD; about a dozen First Nation reserves are split across CSDs (e.g., Okanagan Part 1 has two different CSD identifying numbers; Makwa Lake 129, Makwa Lake 129 B, Makwa Lake 129 C has three), in which case each CSD is identified as Indigenous by ISC. Inuit communities generally lie in CSD classifications. A few communities experienced CSDs code changes over time. To address this issue and follow the same reserves over time, the 2011 CSD identifier is assigned to these reserves.
Canada has over 630 First Nation and 50 Inuit communities (CIRNAC, 2018); 910 CSDs corresponded to an Indigenous community in 2001, 933 in 2006, 889 in 2011 and 1,081 in 2016. From a sample of 3,813 CSDs, we drop 1,323 CSDs that do not have data for the CWB Index, which includes 273 First Nations communities with fewer than 10 inhabitants. A further 41 CSDs are excluded as they had a global nonresponse rate of 50% or more. The final CSD dataset is an unbalanced panel consisting of approximately 2,445 observations. After a painstaking analysis of the T3010 data set, we found ~ 355 different charities located inside the borders of these Indigenous CSDs. This translates into a total of ~ 860 observations: ~90 charities are present in all four time periods, ~ 60 charities in three time periods, ~ 110 in two periods and ~ 95 charities in one period. The number of charities increases from ~ 180 in 2001 to ~ 210 in 2006 to ~ 235 in 2011 and ~ 235 in 2016.
We use the censuses to extract CSD-level characteristics to include in our regression analysis. Detailed census data from the ‘long-form’ questionnaire are collected from 100% of residents in Indigenous reserves as compared to a 20% of residents in the rest of Canada. In 2011, the Census was replaced by the NHS and the long form questionnaire was administered on a voluntary basis to one-third of Canadians but, again, to the total population in reserves. Although the global NHS response rate was only a weighted 77%, Indigenous communities distinguished themselves with an 82% average response rate (AANDC, 2015).
In addition to the community-level analysis, we extract information at the individual level on the four sub-indices of the CWB (Education, Labour Force Activity, Housing, and Income) to construct an Individual Wellbeing (IWB) index, which suffers from all of the limitations already discussed. Moreover, we cannot replicate exactly at the individual level the indices underlying the CWB, for several reasons: we do not have the coding for the creation of the CWBs and hence do not know how they deal with the problems of outliers and missing data. The income deflator used in the construction of the CWB index is not publicly available. Components of the CWB index are constructed necessarily by weighting elements; for instance, the Education index weighs high school completion by two-thirds and more than high school by one-third, the individual has either high school or some other level of education. Presumably, the CWB weighting was constructed with reference to the ‘average’ characteristics of communities, but it will be an approximation. For the IWB, we can look precisely at the level of an individual’s education (in five categories), as we can for the other three components of the index. Finally, the CWB is a validated measure that has been employed for decades by researchers, our IWB is not. That being said, there is a notable similarity between average CWBs and average IWB; bigger differences are found when comparing the components, as discussed below.
The individual-level analysis begins with a weighted sample of 1,610,340 observations. We drop individuals living in CSDs with fewer than 10 people (removing 1,140) and then focus on individuals aged 25 to 64 (removing 891,930 observations), who live in a household with no more than 12 people (removing 5,365 observations), and who report less than $100 in annual total income (removing 10,785 observations). The final repeated cross-sectional dataset has about 701,120 observations (rounded to the nearest five because of RDC disclosure constraints).
Canada Post’s Postal Code Conversion File (PCCF) matched the postal codes of the charities to the Indigenous CSDs. Out of the approximately 2,445 First Nation and Inuit communities in the CSD sample, ~ 395 or 16% of them have at least one charity within its borders. A few postal codes fell both inside the reserve and in the surroundings of the reserve (e.g., Milbrook Indian Reserve No. 27 and Truro in Nova Scotia). In all of these cases, we verified using Google maps if the exact address of the charity provided in the T3010 Information Return was located within Indigenous CSD and excluded those that were outside. We calculate geographic isolation data using Statistic Canada maps and the ArcGis software that gives the distance between the CSD and the nearest urban core, defined as a census agglomeration with a population of at least 10,000 or a CMA with at least 100,000 people. We include data on Self-government agreements, Comprehensive Land Claim Agreements, First Nation Fiscal Management Act and the First Nation Land Management Act implemented either by First Nations’ bands or Inuit communities.
One limitation of the use of T3010 data is that registered charities account for only about one half of the Canadian total nonprofit sector (Khovrenkov, 2017). Other, non-registered nonprofit organizations, such as recreational clubs and sports associations, are not captured by the data set and are hence ignored in this study.
The CWB Index was designed to compare Indigenous communities to other communities and to track their development over time. The CWB Index ranges from 0 to 100: the higher the number, the better the CWB. It is an amalgam of four scores: Education_WB weighs high school completion by two-thirds and university completion by one-third; LFA_WB uses an equally weighted ratio of the population which is either employed or is unemployed but part of the labour force in the week prior to the census data collection. Housing_WB takes account of dwellings that do not require major repairs, and the proportion of the population living in houses that are not overcrowded. The formula for the Income_WB score considers the income per capita in each community net of the lowest average income as a ratio of the range of the highest and lowest average income in the CSDs, expressed as:
Income_WB = ((log(income per cap)-log(2000))/(log(40000)-log(2000)))*100
Where $40,000 is approximately the highest per capita income in Canadian communities and $2,000 is approximately the lowest (O’Sullivan, 2011, p.4).
Other limitations include that CWB scores are not available for communities with fewer than 65 inhabitants and for reserves that are considered as incompletely enumerated – largely due to natural events that prevented Statistics Canada’ census takers to reach remote communities, or to the refusal by some Indigenous reserves to participate in the data collection. The four sub-indices of the CWB index are not available for CSDs with fewer than 40 households or 250 people. Finally, since the 2011 NHS was not mandatory, some reserves had a global non-response rate of 50% or more. Taking these limitations into account, the final dataset for the CWB sub-indices analyses decreases from ~ 2,450 to ~ 1,560 observations.
Table 1 reports some descriptive statistics from the community data. Sixteen percent of Indigenous communities have at least one charity within their borders, which falls to 10% when all religious charities are excluded. The mean CWB score for First Nations and Inuit communities is 58 points out of 100 which rises to almost 65 if we include only those Indigenous communities with access to a charity. The pattern of a higher score for communities with charities compared to those without, maintains for the subcomponent scores as well. British Columbia is the province with the most Indigenous communities and hence the province of reference.
Table 1
Selected Summary statistics for CWB Index and subindices regressions
| Mean (Std. Dev.) - percentage | |
| (1) | (2) | (3) | |
Independent variables of interest | Excluding religious charities n = 2,445 | Including religious charities with social services n = 2,445 | Including religious charities n = 2,445 | |
Access | 0.096 | 0.124 | 0.162 | |
Number of charities | 0.192 (0.897) | 0.268 (1.108) | 0.352 (1.240) | |
Dependent variables | All sample n = 2,445 | With charities n = 395 | Without charities n = 2,050 | Difference in means (2)-(3) |
CWB | 58.136 (10.062) | 64.547 (9.539) | 56.895 (9.685) | 7.651*** |
Dependent variables | All sample n = 1,560 | With charities n = 355 | Without charities n = 1,205 | Difference in means (2)-(3) |
Education_CWB | 34.298 (12.378) | 42.321 (11.685) | 31.938 (11.564) | 10.383*** |
Housing_CWB | 68.019 (14.921) | 75.901 (13.055) | 65.700 (14.644) | 10.201*** |
Income_CWB | 55.586 (13.857) | 65.803 (14.208) | 52.581 (12.228) | 13.222*** |
LFA_CWB | 69.195 (9.083) | 74.054 (8.519) | 67.766 (8.746) | 6.287*** |
Independent variables | All sample n = 2,445 | With charities n = 395 | Without charities n = 2,050 | Difference in means (2)-(3) |
Ratio male | 0.510 (0.037) | 0.501 (0.028) | 0.511 (0.038) | -0.010*** |
Ratio young (age below 15) | 0.322 (0.090) | 0.288 (0.089) | 0.328 (0.089) | -0.040*** |
Ratio adults | 0.605 (0.070) | 0.620 (0.061) | 0.602 (0.071) | 0.018*** |
Ratio Indigenous Identity | 0.915 (0.164) | 0.830 (0.237) | 0.932 (0.140) | -0.102*** |
Ratio registered under Indian Act | 0.816 (0.294) | 0.653 (0.382) | 0.847 (0.262) | -0.194*** |
Agreements | 0.221 | 0.430 | 0.180 | 0.253*** |
Population | 623.183 (725.965) | 1246.365 (1153.297) | 502.615 (531.520) | 743.750*** |
CSD with no postal code | 0.376 | - | 0.449 | - |
Amount spent on charitable activity (All) | 218,320 (2,138,303) | 1,346,767 (5,171,246) | - | - |
Distance 0 km from urban core | 0.192 | 0.329 | 0.166 | 0.164*** |
Distance 1 to 30 km from urban core | 0.160 | 0.163 | 0.161 | 0.002 |
Distance 31 to 100 km from urban core | 0.271 | 0.127 | 0.299 | -0.172*** |
Distance above 100 km from urban core | 0.378 | 0.388 | 0.376 | 0.010 |
Summary statistics for subindices regressions: | All sample n = 1,560 | With charities n = 355 | Without charities n = 1,205 | Difference in means (2)-(3) |
CSD Average Household size | 3.970 (2.814) | 3.877 (3.000) | 3.997 (2.757) | -0.120 |
Ratio persons with none or less than High School | 0.365 (0.096) | 0.314 (0.089) | 0.380 (0.092) | -0.066*** |
Ratio persons with High School Certificate | 0.106 (0.065) | 0.126 (0.071) | 0.101 (0.062) | 0.025*** |
Ratio persons above HS, below bachelor (including trades and apprenticeship certificate) | 0.176 (0.093) | 0.227 (0.081) | 0.161 (0.091) | 0.066*** |
Ratio persons with bachelor degree | 0.026 (0.023) | 0.042 (0.033) | 0.021 (0.015) | 0.021*** |
Ratio person with master, doctorate, degree in Medicine | 0.005 (0.009) | 0.011 (0.015) | 0.003 (0.005) | 0.008*** |
Ratio persons employed | 0.193 (0.144) | 0.240 (0.168) | 0.179 (0.133) | 0.061*** |
Ratio persons unemployed | 0.067 (0.056) | 0.067 (0.053) | 0.067 (0.057) | -0.000 |
Ratio persons not in the labour force | 0.225 (0.158) | 0.218 (0.153) | 0.227 (0.159) | -0.009 |
Summary statistics for PSM Model | All sample n = 2,445 | With charities n = 395 | Without charities n = 2,050 | Difference in means (2)-(3) |
Agreements | 0.221 | 0.430 | 0.180 | 0.253*** |
Distance in km | 176.599 (314.326) | 251.467 (419.878) | 162.114 (287.387) | 89.352*** |
Agreement*distance | 102.084 (318.270) | 214.674 (429.136) | 80.301 (287.085) | 134.372*** |
Population | 623.183 (725.965) | 1246.365 (1153.297) | 502.615 (531.520) | 743.750*** |
Ratio male | 0.510 (0.037) | 0.501 (0.028) | 0.511 (0.038) | -0.010*** |
Ratio Indigenous Identity | 0.915 (0.164) | 0.830 (0.237) | 0.932 (0.140) | -0.102*** |
Summary statistics for PSM Model subindices | All sample n = 1,560 | With charities n = 355 | Without charities n = 1,205 | Difference in means (2)-(3) |
Agreements | 0.246 | 0.105 | 0.141 | -0.035*** |
Distance in km | 214.358 (350.212) | 262.291 (435.158) | 200.260 (319.831) | 62.031** |
Agreement*distance | 134.510 (360.226) | 228.320 (444.922) | 106.919 (326.345) | 121.401*** |
Population | 895.388 (787.491) | 1375.313 (1153.188) | 754.234 (569.733) | 621.079*** |
Ratio male | 0.505 (0.029) | 0.499 (0.025) | 0.507 (0.030) | -0.007*** |
Ratio Indigenous Identity | 0.917 (0.173) | 0.820 (0.242) | 0.945 (0.134) | -0.125*** |
The standard deviation (in parenthesis) is not provided for dichotomous variables. The unit of observation is the CSD, however weights have been applied at the individual universe (aweight = compw2) during the calculation of the ratios. The number of observations is rounded to the nearest five. LFA_WB stands for labour force activity well-being. Agreement*distance is an interaction term between the categorical variable ‘agreements’ and the continuous variable ‘distance’ expressed in kilometers from the nearest urban core. An urban core is defined by Statistics Canada (2017b) as an agglomeration with a population of at least 10,000 individuals or a Census Metropolitan Area with at least 100,000 people. |
Table 2 reports the summary statistics for individuals aged 25 to 64 years, who live in an Indigenous community with a population of at least 10 inhabitants. Average IWB scores are remarkably close to those of average CWBs: for the full sample, average CWB is 58.136 and average IWB is 58.337; for the sample with charities, average CWB is 64.547 while average IWB is 63.075; the sample without charities has an average CWB of 56.895 and an average IWB of 55.912. However, we see differences in the average values of the components across the CWB and IWB indices possibly because of the uniform weighting imposed across all communities in the construction of the community-based measure whereas the IWB reflects actual population characteristics in communities. These differences are especially pronounced for the Education and Labour Force components: average Education CWB for the full sample is 34.298 while it is 41.608 for the comparable IWB sample; for LFA-CWB it is 69.195 and 73.389 for LFA-IWB.
Table 2
Selected summary statistics for Individuals’ regressions
| Mean (Std. Dev.) - percentage | |
| (1) | (2) | (3) | |
Independent variables of interest | Excluding religious charities | Including religious charities with social services | Including religious charities | |
Access | 0.241 | 0.289 | 0.338 | |
Number of charities | 0.782 (2.313) | 1.045 (2.883) | 1.217 (3.023) | |
Dependent variables | All sample n = 701,120 | With charities n = 237,350 | Without charities n = 463,770 | Difference in means (2)-(3) |
IWB | 58.337 (18.402) | 63.075 (18.363) | 55.912 (17.944) | 7.162*** |
Education_IWB | 41.608 (21.116) | 45.992 (21.791) | 39.364 (20.401) | 6.627*** |
Housing_IWB | 63.352 (29.504) | 68.882 (28.211) | 60.521 (29.749) | 8.361*** |
Income_IWB | 55.000 (28.723) | 60.430 (29.412) | 52.221 (27.959) | 8.209*** |
LFA_IWB | 73.389 (30.252) | 76.995 (29.524) | 71.543(30.452) | 5.452*** |
Independent variables | All sample n = 701,120 | With charities n = 237,350 | Without charities n = 463,770 | Difference in means (2)-(3) |
Male | 0.504 | 0.495 | 0.508 | -0.014*** |
Age* | 42.13 (11.02) | 42.90 (11.17) | 41.74 (10.92) | 1.15*** |
Indigenous Identity | 0.854 | 0.735 | 0.914 | -0.179*** |
Registered under the Indian Act | 0.737 | 0.577 | 0.820 | -0.243*** |
Household size | 4.11 (2.26) | 3.75 (2.10) | 4.30 (2.32) | -0.55*** |
High School Certificate | 0.160 | 0.170 | 0.154 | 0.016*** |
Above HS, below bachelor (including trades and apprenticeship certificate) | 0.345 | 0.388 | 0.323 | 0.065*** |
Bachelor degree | 0.060 | 0.086 | 0.046 | 0.040*** |
Master, doctorate, degree in Medicine | 0.013 | 0.024 | 0.007 | 0.016*** |
Employed | 0.533 | 0.595 | 0.501 | 0.094*** |
Unemployed | 0.136 | 0.120 | 0.144 | -0.025*** |
Not in the labour force | 0.331 | 0.285 | 0.355 | -0.070*** |
Agreements | 0.292 | 0.501 | 0.186 | 0.032*** |
Population* | 1,457 (1,434) | 2,363 (1,804) | 993 (899) | 1,370*** |
CSD with no Postal Code | 0.254 | - | 0.384 | - |
Amount spent on charitable activity (all) | 722,226 (3,394,166) | 2,133,407(5,569,546) | - | - |
Distance 0 km from urban core | 0.248 | 0.407 | 0.167 | 0.239*** |
Distance 1 to 30 km from urban core | 0.136 | 0.110 | 0.149 | -0.040*** |
Distance 31 to 100 km from urban core | 0.202 | 0.101 | 0.253 | -0.152*** |
Distance above 100 km from urban core | 0.415 | 0.383 | 0.431 | -0.047*** |
The summary statistics are weighted (aweight = compw2) and n = weighted number of observations. The number of observations is rounded to the nearest five. The standard deviation (in parenthesis) is not provided for dichotomous variables. Dollar amounts are expressed in 2016 values. *These variables were not used in the regressions. |
We also see from Table 2 that average household income is $65,351 (all dollar values deflated by the provincial 2016 CPI). One third of these individuals have access to at least one charity. In terms of demographic characteristics, the mean age is 42.13 years, with slightly more males than females (50.4%). Eighty-five percent of individuals living in Indigenous communities have an Indigenous identity, this number drops to 73.5% in communities with charities compared to 91.4% in communities without charities. A significant 42.2% of individuals did not complete high school, 16% completed it and 36.4% have some education above high school. University degrees are rare: 6% graduated from university with a bachelor’s degree and only 1.3% with a masters, medical or doctorate degree. The bottom of Table 1 presents the variables used in the PSM models; Tables 1 and 2 report the summary statistics of these variables.