Kitchener ranked as one of the most generous communities in Canada

Kitchener was named as Canada’s twelfth most generous city in GoFundMe’s annual ‘Year in Giving’ report for 2023. Guelph ranked as 14 on the list with Toronto at 16.

GoFundMe is one of the world’s largest free social fundraising platforms. Their report for 2023 recorded 2 million donations in Canada that went towards people, causes and organizations. This was an increase from the previous year that recorded almost 1.86 million donations.

GoFundMe selects the most generous communities in Canada by measuring the number of donations per capita made through the platform that year.

They reported that over 16,000 donations were made in Kitchener in 2023. With the current population of the city, they reported a per capita rate of 6.57 per cent.

GoFundMe’s Senior Corporate Affairs Manager for Canada, Ved Khan, said despite the fact that Canadians are facing a lot of uncertainty around economics and the cost-of-living crisis, Canadians are still helping each other.

“Were seeing 2 million donations this year which is 7 per cent more then last year,” said Khan. “People’s need for help in situations just comes when you least expect it, and they just need help beyond their means.”

A fundraiser in Kitchener-Waterloo was one of the highest amounts raised for a GoFundMe campaign in Canada this year.

The musicians of the KW Symphony have currently raised over $455,000 through GoFundMe. The money raised goes to support local musicians after the KW Symphony Orchestra Association had to declare bankruptcy in September.

Jennifer Stephen has played Tuba since she was a child and until recently played in the KW Symphony. Her and the other musicians quickly found themselves out of work in September and needed help from the community. They drummed up the idea to start a fundraiser.

 “When they declared bankruptcy, we just realized very quickly that all of a sudden, all of us, were without an income and without work,” said Stephen.

“I just kept checking it and I was just surprised, pleasantly surprised, by how quickly people started to lend support and not just financial support but messages of support. I think that was really important for all of us to see that the community was really supporting its musicians,” added Stephen.

Stephen said it was the first time she’s ever launched a fundraiser and was happy with how easy the GoFundMe platform was to use.

The campaign for the musicians of the KW Symphony just came online in September. Stephen said the musicians were surprised with how quickly it has already grown to be one of the higher donation raising campaigns on the platform for the country.

“It speaks to just the level of support in the community for the orchestra and the fact that its still going,” said Stephen. “I don’t think we’ve had a 24-hour period yet where there hasn’t been some donation made.”

Stephen added that it wasn’t just the community who donated to the fundraiser to support musicians of the KW Symphony, the donations came from across the country.

“To know that what we do means so much to so many people is really outstanding,” said Stephen.

Even without the fundraiser for the KW Symphony, Khan said Kitchener would still rank as one of the top communities for generosity.

“The fact that Kitchener is number 12 is not just associated only to the symphony campaign. We have around 16 thousand donations for Kitchener alone so that’s definitely way in the leagues of what makes it into the top communities,” said Khan.