5 Nonprofit Fundraising Insights According to Latest World Giving Index

There are many reports based on nonprofit fundraising trends but few consider global results and that is one of the reasons why I look forward to reviewing the World Giving Index. Last year I wrote about the 2011 edition that reflected overall giving had slightly increased, monetary donations had fallen slightly and the US topped the charts. The 2012 World Giving Index was recently released and the research spearheaded by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) provided insightful information once again. This latest report was based on a survey of 155,000 donors aged 15 and older across 148 countries, on various aspects of their lives including giving behaviours. In reviewing the latest results there were 5 key insights that I found interesting in worldwide giving.

1. 

   courtesy of cafonline.org

   Philanthropic Participation Drops – The overall percentage of philanthropic deeds has dropped significantly from 2007 to 2011 despite there being more actual participants. As the world population has increased the percentage of those actively being generous with their money or time has decreased with volunteering being the most impacted with a 3% drop, while helping a stranger fell 1.9% and donating money fell 1.8%. Interesting to note is that within this four year period 2009 and 2011 were years where participation in these giving behaviours experienced significant decreases.

2. Africa Experiences Largest Decrease – As a continent, Africa has experienced the largest decrease than all other continents by 3% and across all three giving behaviours. The continent has faced many challenges during the analyzed period, including the worst drought in Eastern Africa in the past 25 years, disease and political conflict. Interestingly when it comes to helping a stranger, Africans have a higher participation level than in continents like Europe and Asia. Liberia was also the only African country in the top 20 ranking 11th.
3. Helping Strangers Most Common – Of the three giving behaviours that the index assesses helping a stranger topped the list as 45.1% of surveyed respondents confirmed doing so at least on a monthly basis, more than twice the amount that volunteered time. As the index does not factor in amount of money donated or time spent on volunteering or helping a stranger and simply factors instances of the behaviour the index ensures that all countries are measured comparatively despite population or economic status. The simple act of helping someone that you don’t know does not have to cost anything financially and is an insightful way to measure giving.
4. Australia Tops the List – Although Americans had topped the list in the 2011 index, Australians seem to have shown more philanthropic tendencies as two thirds of the population have made a donation to charity, volunteered their time or even helped a stranger on a monthly average. They topped the index in both the one and five year analysis and ranked highly in all three giving behaviours. In addition to social development, Australia has been one of the very few countries in the world to be recession free in 20 years. The government has played a crucial role in encouraging philanthropy and ensured the charitable giving had a stronger impact.
5. Gender & Age Matter – The index results show that in the battle of the sexes, women tend to donate money more than men. However, the reverse is true when it came to volunteering time or helping a stranger as men edged out women in these results. Notably the margin between the two is fairly small being under 5%. When it came to age, youth (aged 16-24) were more likely to volunteer time or help a stranger in comparison to the older generation (aged 50+). Older respondents were more likely to give money to charity by up to 10% over the younger demographic.

Resources such as the 2012 World Giving Index are valuable as they provide a global perspective to measure local fundraising efforts against while reminding us that our work and efforts are really part of a much larger network of philanthropists supporting causes globally.

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