The United States Is Generous but Not the Most Generous Country in the World (Report)

Americans donate a lot of money — roughly $410 billion in 2017 — but that doesn’t mean the United States is the most generous country in the world. The top spot belongs to Indonesia, followed in order by Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Ireland, according to a new report.

A new Gallup study, based on interviews with 153,000 people in 146 countries, found that 78 percent of Indonesians had donated money to charity. In comparison, 61 percent of Americans had done so.

Money wasn’t the only aspect of charity the Gallup index looked at. It also examined the amount of time people give to charity and their willingness to help strangers.

Indonesians were more likely to volunteer their time than Americans, though Americans were more willing than Indonesians to help strangers.

The study sought to provide a more well-rounded analysis of charity, wrote Jon Clifton, global managing partner at Gallup, in the report’s introduction. “The United States is often considered the most generous country in the world,” he said. But the survey suggests one important thing: “You don’t need to be rich to give back.”

Other countries with significantly smaller GDPs than the United States that were also in the “most generous” top 10 were Bahrain, Kenya, and Myanmar.

Clifton said the report may surprise people who assume that Americans must be the most generous just because they have greater spending power, and that people in places beset by war, violence, and other major problems can’t be equally generous or more so in their spirit of giving.

Nonetheless, some of the countries that Gallup found had the lowest scores are in turmoil, including Yemen, Greece, Afghanistan, and Turkey.

China also ranked low in generosity, placing third from last.