UK Giving 2010, which surveyed more than 3,000 UK adults, reveals that the public gave £10.6bn to charity in 2009/10, with 56% of people giving to voluntary organisations. Major gifts from individual philanthropists were worth an additional £1.0bn
The median gift per month was £12 in 2009/10, up from £10 in each of the five previous years. Women aged between 45 and 64 were the most likely to give, with 68% doing so. The report reveals that the growth in the rate of the take-up of Gift Aid has slowed, with 40% of donors signing declarations, compared with 39% in the previous year.
Here James Allen, senior policy officer at NCVO and Hannah Terrey, head of policy and public affairs for CAF, gave Philanthropy UK their thoughts on what needs to be done to increase giving among the general public.
The 2010 edition of the UK Giving report comes at a crucial time for the voluntary and community sector. We are seeing greater political interest and profile for the sector, but this is against a challenging financial and economic backdrop - rising demand and falling income. In this context, issues of sector funding top the list of key issues closest to the hearts of voluntary and community organisations. The Spending Review has signalled a period of significant cuts to public expenditure, and whilst there are clear opportunities – including around the future of public services, this will inevitably impact heavily upon our sector. The precise scale of the impact of cuts is not yet known – the majority of sector funding from the state already flows through local government and a period of unprecedented cuts will coincide with radical decentralisation and far less monitoring of local decisions from the centre. Cuts to funding from government will mean that the relative importance of giving and philanthropy will increase.
The 2010 edition of UK Giving reinforces the fact that giving is already a relatively widespread and well established practice, with 56% of adults giving regularly. There are positives in the report, despite the wider economic climate, for example an increase in median donations to £12. This is clearly encouraging and suggests that the recession and economic insecurity has not caused donors to reduce their level of giving. However, the priority now is not only to see stable patterns of donations, but to generate a step change in giving. A return to economic growth may also create the environment in which people feel more able to give, although the last economic boom did not prompt a big increase in giving.
As part of the UK Giving report, NCVO and CAF have jointly suggested a number of potential public policy changes:
Promoting philanthropy through the tax system
-Government should review tax incentives for charitable giving. Promoting and improving existing schemes, together with the introduction of further tax-effective giving mechanisms could help to release additional philanthropic capital for the sector.
-In particular, effort should be made to improve and encourage the take-up of Payroll Giving by employers and employees.
- Government should continue to investigate the case for making Lifetime Legacies available in the UK (similar to US Charitable Remainder Trusts).
Modernisation of the Gift Aid system to ensure that it can continue to be successful.
- Gift Aid is 20 years old and has proven to be a very successful and important scheme, securing an additional £1billion in tax relief for the charitable sector. However donor usage has plateaued in recent years and the system has become increasingly complex and out of date. Action must be taken to break through the ceiling in Gift Aid take-up, ensuring that all eligible donors are able to participate easily and that the scheme is brought into the digital age.
- Government should implement the recommendations of the Gift Aid forum. These recommendations include a campaign to raise the profile of giving through Gift Aid and actions to simplify the Gift Aid rules for donating through various means such as sponsorship, auctions and membership schemes.
- Government should also prioritise action to enable Gift Aid to be fully operational online and to ensure that donations through innovative fundraising mechanisms, such as SMS, are easily Gift Aided.
In the interests of promoting a fundamental change in the amounts that people give, NCVO’s Funding Commission, the final report of which launched on 6th December, will be recommending the steps that the sector itself must take to promote a culture of giving. The aim of the Commission has been to make recommendations which should see income from individual donations double to £20bn by 2020. A central recommendation will put forward plans for a ‘Better Asking Campaign’ – co-ordinated across the sector to improve the quality and effectiveness of fundraising, promote new approaches to seeking support and promote the role of the sector in civil society. Whilst government should look at creating the right frameworks to promote giving, and at the very least ‘do no harm’ in ensuring that the unintended consequences of policy result in a decline in donations, the ultimate responsibility to promote giving lies in the sector.
We should be ambitious and settle for small, incremental changes in the amounts that are given or who gives. For the UK voluntary and community sector, the priorities are to:
- Consolidate and increase the level of donations from those who give already.
- Promote a culture of philanthropy, where high net worth individuals are encouraged to make a greater contribution to supporting civil society
- Widening the base of donors who give. A particular focus should be on encouraging additional giving from currently under-represented groups (particularly men aged 16-24, who have the lowest rate of giving and the lowest median donation)
- Finding ways to maximise the potential of donors who are likely to give sporadically or spontaneously, including through better use of social media and other platforms
- Emphasise that benefit from giving is not only derived by the recipient. Recent research demonstrates that there is a clear correlation between giving (of time and money) and overall wellbeing.
