This year’s The CAF World Giving Index, released today, shows the UK to have fallen out of the top 20, down to number 22. CAF also found that two-fifths of people don’t believe it’s a generous country.
This is only the second time the UK has dropped out of the top 20 since 2009. However, its overall global rank and scores have been declining over the past decade. In 2014, it was the sixth most generous country in the world, achieving an overall score of 57%, but this has fallen to 49% this year.
A decline in each area measured
This year’s CAF World Giving Index show that the UK’s score has fallen significantly in each of the three individual measures CAF asks people about: whether people have helped a stranger, given money or volunteered for a good cause over the past month. In 2014, 75% in the UK donated money compared to 67% in this year’s report. Fewer people now help strangers (declining from 63% to 55%) and volunteer their time (32% falling to 26%).
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A separate polling for the Charities Aid Foundation found that only a quarter (25%) of the UK public thinks the country has become more generous over the last 100 years, while two in five (41%) think the UK’s generosity has declined or was never especially generous to begin with.
The UK is also behind other high-income countries that saw a decline in their index score during the pandemic but returned to a high ranking in 2022. This year’s top 10 includes the United States in sixth place and Australia in eighth, while Canada is 11th, Ireland is 15th and New Zealand is in 17th place.
2024’s most generous countries
This year’s CAF World Giving Index covers 142 countries with Indonesia, Kenya and Singapore the most generous countries in the world.
Commenting, Neil Heslop, Chief Executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, said:
“The long-term decline in the UK’s overall generosity shows we seem to have increasingly fallen out of the habit of giving – both our time and our money. Building a giving society is crucial to connect us to one another in communities and strengthen our social fabric.
“While we can still be a generous country even when times are so tough, more needs to be done to prevent this downward trend from continuing. We can learn from other countries that have taken proactive steps to harness charitable giving such as Singapore and Australia. That is why we are calling on the Government to lead a national strategy for philanthropy and charitable giving that renews our British culture of giving.”
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.