Charitable activities and ‘wellbeing’ in indigenous communities

Rose Anne Devlin () and Michela Planatscher
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Rose Anne Devlin: University of Ottawa
Michela Planatscher: University of Ottawa

International Tax and Public Finance, 2025, vol. 32, issue 5, No 8, 1532-1572

Abstract: Abstract Although charities are created expressly to benefit communities, it has proven difficult to capture the extent to which this mission is fulfilled. We tackle this challenge by focusing on charitable services provided to First Nations’ reserves and Inuit communities. Benefits are captured by their impact on a uniformly measured ‘community wellbeing’ (CWB) index, and on some individual outcomes. Geo-coding technology enables the matching of the location of charities, Indigenous communities, and their residents. OLS estimations reveal robustly positive associations between the charitable sector and the CWB; the inclusion of community fixed effects suggests some causality. Propensity Score Matching reveals that charities locate where the CWB is low, and points to an even stronger correlation between the presence of charities and CWB. Individual-level analysis provides additional support of a causal link. Causality is bolstered by nuanced evidence from a stacked-event study examining how the entry of charities affects CWB. We conclude that the services of charities contribute to community wellbeing.

Keywords: Charitable services; Community wellbeing; Stacked event study; Charities; Community prosperity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 H00 H49 I31 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s10797-024-09874-5

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