The state of giving: CAF’s 2024 UK Giving Report

Each year, the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) conducts a study of the nation’s giving habits to help charities, government, and wider society better understand the UK’s giving landscape.

And the results are in for 2023.

According to its 2024 UK Giving Report, despite the challenges posed by the cost-of-living crisis, the British public dusted off their wallets and donated a whopping £13.9 billion to charity.

This was up £1.2bn on the previous year and £3.2bn higher than in 2021. 

The report says the increase was due to donors making larger donations, rather than more people giving, and it pushed the average monthly donation up to £65, (a 40% increase from 2019).

It’s a great start. But what else does the report reveal?

Here are some of the key findings.

Fewer people are giving regularly

Nearly six in ten people (58%) donated to charity regularly in 2023, compared to 65% in 2019 and 69% in 2016. And the typical (median) donation was £20.
This amount has remained unchanged since 2017, but it’s worth less today in real terms due to inflation.

Some of the UK’s most deprived areas were among the most generous

For the first time, the report highlighted how much each parliamentary constituency in the UK gave to charities.

Belfast West, one of the most deprived parts of Northern Ireland, gave an average of 2.2% of their household income to good causes. While donors in Kensington and Bayswater - one of the wealthiest areas in London - donated just 0.5%, the lowest percentage in the country.

The constituency of Sheffield Hallam was the most generous, with people donating 3.2% of their income to charity.

Donations to disaster relief charities halved

The proportion of donations going to overseas aid and disaster relief charities dropped from 14% in 2022 to 7% in 2023.

This was despite high-profile appeals for Turkey, Syria, and Morocco following the devastating earthquakes, and the conflict in Gaza.

Compared to 2022, around £800 million less went to overseas aid and disaster relief last year.

Trust in charities is growing

Trust in charities has been increasing in recent years, but there’s work to be done. Just 55% of respondents said that charities are trustworthy in 2023.

Higher levels of trust were limited to areas where people were more likely to donate but gave less as a proportion of their income.

Opinion

Commenting on the report, Neil Heslop OBE, Chief Executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, said:

“Britain is a generous country, and CAF’s UK Giving research shows how we can come together, to give more to causes that matter to us, even when times are tough. But it’s concerning that we’re relying on a dwindling group of regular givers, and the typical donation is static and eroded by inflation.  

That’s why we need to foster a more widespread and sustainable culture of giving to support charities that are squeezed from all sides. Government can set the tone by committing to drawing up a national strategy for philanthropy and charitable giving, ideally as part of a renewed approach to the whole of civil society in every part of the UK.”

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