Charitable Donations as a Reflection of National Values: An Exploratory Comparison of Canada and the United States

ABSTRACT

This article examines whether differences in national values in Canada and the United States are reflected in charitable donations for those countries. It is proposed that the United States is more individualistic, and Canada is more collectivistic. Education is used as a proxy for individualistic causes, and health care as a proxy for collectivist causes. An examination of secondary data supports the proposed hypotheses. Results suggest that charitable donations reflect national values. Results also support Lipset's hypothesis that Americans are more individualistic than Canadians. Canadians demonstrate a tendency toward equality of result whereas Americans demonstrate a tendency toward equality of opportunity. As this work is exploratory, avenues for future research are outlined.

KEYWORDS:

• Charitable donations
• cross-cultural comparison
• Canada
• the United States
• survey data
• secondary data analysis