Millions give less to charity as bills rise and interest wanes

An estimated four million fewer people are donating money to charity compared to before Covid, owing to squeezed household budgets and a lack of interest from younger individuals.

A survey by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) found that just half of the people it asked made donations last year.

Only a third of 16 to 24-year-olds donated or sponsored someone during the year, down from about a half in 2019.

Charities said they are increasingly reliant on a smaller group of people to give while at same time, seeing their own running costs rise.

“This research starkly demonstrates that we need to do much more to build our culture of giving,” said Neil Heslop, chief executive of CAF, itself a charity and an advisory group for the charitable sector.

Pressure from the rising cost of living has hit the number of people donating, according to the survey, based on 13,000 responses. It found:

• Half of those asked, or 50%, gave money to charity last year, down from 58% in 2019 – the equivalent of four million people
• A fifth of people, some 21%, said they sponsored someone for charity last year, compared with 32% in 2019
• Among 16 to 24-year-olds, 36% donated or sponsored someone over the year, down from 52% in 2019

Donor numbers fell in every area of the UK, but it was most significant in London, as well as the north west and north east of England. Wales saw the most modest decline.

The biggest reason for failing to donate was a lack of money, but more than a third said it was due to a lack of interest in charity.

Some charities have decided that collecting at scale from individuals requires significant investment and does not make economic sense.

Nick Connolly, chief executive of EveryYouth, a network of youth homelessness charities, said: “Mass market individual giving is not on our radar – it’s too expensive.”

Instead, he said they focused more on other sources of funding, such as from foundations or donations from businesses.

The economic situation post-Covid had made collection harder, and there were more charities chasing the same donors, he said.

“I’ve been fundraising for 20 years, and it has never been harder than now,” he said.

“Where we used to compete with 20 charities, we’re now competing with 100.

“Inevitably it is harder to stand out in such a crowded marketplace. With so much information to process, decision-making can become more of a tick-box exercise which makes it harder for new ideas to cut through.”