November 27, 1997 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Fewer British households are giving to charity now than in the past two decades, although the average donation continues to increase faster than inflation, according to the latest statistical yearbook on Britain’s non-profit world.
“Successive generations of young people are decreasingly likely to give to charity,” warns the report, published by the Charities Aid Foundation, a charity that seeks to encourage philanthropy. Partly as a result, it says, “the overall level of individual giving to charity is still not increasing.”
Just 6 per cent of households headed by someone age 18 to 22 gave to charity in 1994, for example, compared with 17 per cent of such homes in 1974. Among households headed by 48- to 52-year-olds, by contrast, the drop was from 40 per cent to 39 per cent during that period.
Britain’s non-profit organizations have annual revenues of 12 billion to 16 billion pounds (or $18-billion to $24-billion), depending on how narrowly they are defined, says the report, which distills data from many research projects. The country’s Charity Commission recorded 181,467 registered charities in 1995, but churches, community groups, educational institutions, and sports and social clubs swell the total number of charities to around 400,000.
Individual donors account for between 4.3 billion and 6.1 billion pounds a year in contributions — plus as much as one billion pounds in bequests. About 29 per cent of British households overall gave to charity in 1993. The average amount donated each week was about four pounds ($6).
The country’s 8,793 grant-making trusts gave nearly two billion pounds to charity last year — up 5.4 per cent from the previous year, after adjusting for inflation. The Wellcome Trust gave the most: 219 million pounds, or about $330-million.
Grants from corporations totaled some 260-million pounds. Among the top 500 companies tracked by the Charities Aid Foundation, giving grew by 9 per cent in real terms in 1995-96 — the largest increase in several years. The largest corporate donor — British Telecommunications — gave nearly 15 million pounds.
Among charities, Oxfam raised the most in voluntary income — which includes donations, bequests, and in-kind gifts. The charity raised 92,308 of its 129,397 pounds total revenue from private sources.
Copies of Dimensions of the Voluntary Sector: Key Facts, Figures, Analysis and Trends are available in North America from CAF America Sales, 225 Peeke Avenue, St. Louis 63122-2727. The price per copy is $59.95 postpaid. Ordering information for people elsewhere is available from Biblios in the United Kingdom at 44-1403-710851; the fax is 44-1403-711143; or from the Charities Aid Foundation’s World-Wide Web site at http://www.charitynet.org/bookstore.
