A new lens on who volunteers and how
In December 2025, Statistics Canada released The diverse volunteering contributions of racialized Canadians, a study by Maire Sinha and Christy Lenhardt drawing on the 2023 Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating. It marks the first time the survey has collected data on racialized population groups, giving the sector its first national view of how volunteering patterns vary across racialized populations in Canada.
Seventy per cent of racialized Canadians volunteered in the 12 months before the survey, contributing an estimated 936 million hours, or an average of 145 hours per volunteer. Most of that help was informal, given directly to people or communities rather than through an organization. Canadian-born racialized Canadians volunteered at higher rates (79 per cent) than racialized immigrants (67 per cent), and also higher than Canadian-born non-racialized, non-Indigenous Canadians (74 per cent). Religious organizations and social services were the most common sectors for formal volunteering.
The study also surfaces an equity gap worth sitting with: 20 per cent of racialized formal volunteers serve on a board or committee, compared with 32 per cent of non-racialized, non-Indigenous volunteers. The participation is there. Representation in decision-making roles is not yet matching it.
You can read the full StatsCan report here: The diverse volunteering contributions of racialized Canadians
To make the findings easy to share and act on, the Canadian Knowledge Hub for Giving and Volunteering has prepared a short companion document highlighting the key insights.
