Women Give More Online Than Men, Says New Study

Women make more digital gifts and a larger share of the total amount donated to charity online than men, according to a new study. It also found that women’s and girls’ causes receive significantly more online support from women than from men.

The report, Women Give 2020 — New Forms of Giving in a Digital Age: Powered by Technology, Creating Community, details broad gender differences in how women and men donate online and how they use the internet and social networks in their giving.

Researchers at the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University–Purdue University at Indianapolis, conducted the study. It was paid for with grant money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The report analyzed two years of data from four online-giving platforms: GivingTuesday via Charity Navigator, GlobalGiving, and Givelify; and Growfund via Global Impact. The data from all four included information from more than 3.7 million charitable-gift transactions.

Among the other findings:

• Women made a greater number of contributions than did men — nearly two-thirds of gifts online. Although the average donation size was similar, and in some cases men’s contributions were slightly larger, women’s greater number of donations meant they were giving more dollars than men through each platform studied, or 53 to 61 percent, depending on the platform.

• “Building community” online and offline and adopting a broader definition of philanthropy are important factors for nonprofits and online platforms that want to appeal to women donors.

• Technology gives women donors more flexibility to contribute according to their preferences.