Toronto Animal Services gets more donations than all other city departments

$232,532

—The total amount of tax-receipted donations received by Toronto Animal Services in 2013—the largest sum received by any city department during that year, with the exception of agencies like Toronto Public Library that issue their own receipts. (For comparison, the city’s shelter, support and housing administration, which houses actual human people, received only $5,246 in donations during the same period of time.) A city staff report explains that TAS’s success at tapping Torontonians’ generosity is probably related to its online pet-licensing system, which automatically prompts users for donations to the city’s spay-and-neuter program.