Australia Tumbles in World Giving Index

Australia has tumbled from first to seventh place as the most generous country on earth in the latest World Giving Index.

The index is based on surveys in 135 countries by Gallup over the past year and looks at three measures of giving: the percentage of people who give money to charity, volunteer their time or help a stranger in a typical month.

In 2012 Australia was found to be the most generous country on earth. The World Giving Index 2012, compiled by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), an international charity which promotes charitable giving via companies and individuals, found Australia topped the 2012 table, and also headed a new five-year index which looks at giving between 2007 and the most recent year of fieldwork, 2011.

The 2013 Index places Australia at number seven with the US taking top spot and New Zealand in fourth place.

Charities Aid Foundation Australia Chief Executive Officer Lisa Grinham said the 2012 World Giving Index came off the back of a series of natural disasters in 2011 that increased Australia’s giving status.

“Australia is very generous at time of disaster, not to say they aren’t generous otherwise,” Grinham said.

“CAF continues to encourage Australians to give regularly.”

She said it needed to be clear that the 2013 data was for the calendar year of 2012.

The 2013 index shows that while the UK tops Europe in terms of giving money to charity, Ireland is the most generous nation in Europe overall, with a higher proportion of the Irish volunteering (37 per cent) pushing the UK into second place in Europe.

The index found that the United States was the most generous country on earth, followed in joint second place by Canada, Burma and New Zealand, with Ireland in fifth place.

The next five most generous countries were the UK, Australia, Netherlands, Qatar and Sri Lanka respectively. Greece was bottom of the World Giving Index with Croatia just above them.

Overall, the world became a more generous place last year the index reveals.

Despite a slowdown in the global economy, the average percentage of people donating money, volunteering time and helping a stranger all increased.

The rise in giving was largely driven by an extra 200 million people helping a stranger in 2012. This was more than double the growth in the number of people giving money or volunteering.

Globally,the Index found that  women are more likely to give money to charity, while men are more likely to volunteer and help a stranger. There was a big increase this year in men helping strangers, meaning that proportionally more men are helping strangers than ever before.

Emerging economies are surging ahead in giving: in India 244 million people give money to charity in a typical month, up from 163 million last year. In China 373 million people helped a stranger in a typical month.

John Low, Chief Executive of the UK Charities Aid Foundation, said: “Global levels of generosity are growing, with developing economies showing a huge surge in giving and volunteering. These rapidly developing countries have the potential to have a massive positive impact both in their local communities and internationally through their giving.

“It’s important that governments and charities in these countries work together to harness the giving potential of these growing middle classes to create an even greater charitable culture in these booming economies.”

On the three key indicators of giving money, giving time and helping a stranger, the report found that in 2012:

Giving money

• Burma was the country with the largest proportion of people donating money to a charity (85 per cent). This highlights the fact that giving is about more than just wealth. In fact, out of the top ten countries for donating money to charity, eight are not in the G20. The UK was second (76 per cent), Malta third (72 per cent) and Ireland and Thailand joint fourth (70 per cent).

• More people donated money to charity in India than anywhere in the world, with over 244 million people having donated. Pakistan also entered the top ten for the amount of people donating money to charity, following a third successive year of disastrous flooding, affecting over five million people.

Giving time

• Since 2011 the biggest increase in participation in volunteering has been among 15-24 year olds (from 18.4 per cent in 2011 to 20.6 per cent in 2012). Over the last five years this age group has gone from least likely to volunteer to second most likely to volunteer..

• Due to India’s vast and growing population, coupled with a sharp increase in the proportion of its people volunteering (from 10 per cent  to 18 per cent), India has surpassed the United States, with as many as 157 million people volunteering in a typical month.

Helping a stranger

• Americans were more likely to help strangers than any other nationality in 2012 (77 per cent), and the country also boasts the third highest number of people who do so.

• Qatar had the second highest proportion of people helping a stranger (73 per cent), followed by the State of Libya, Colombia, and Senegal.

• China tops the list for the highest number of people helping strangers due to its large population. Over 373 million people help a stranger in China in a typical month.

To view a concise infographic on the World Giving Index created by Charities Aid Foundation, the bank for charities and Not for Profit organisations, click here. 

Table 1: Top 20 countries in the World Giving Index, with scores and participation in giving behaviours.

Only includes countries surveyed in 2012.

• Read the full report

• Download the world map