02The charitable giving landscape I: Untapped capacity
Rates of charitable giving across the UK can be looked at from two angles. First is the proportion of people giving to charity, or the ‘propensity’ to give, capturing the size of the base of people giving to charity. Second is the amount of money given per donor, capturing giving ‘generosity’. Considering how both these measures vary with local economic performance in the UK helps to determine whether rates of charitable giving match a place’s ‘ability’ to give from an economic perspective.
This section looks at propensity to give. It suggests that there is untapped capacity for giving in some southern areas (particularly London) where the proportion of the population donating to charity is lower than what may be expected given local incomes. The national pool of donors could be expanded if people in these places were as likely to give as people with similar incomes living elsewhere in the UK.
The proportion of people giving varies only slightly across UK regions
Most people in the UK make charitable donations. Estimates of proportions giving to charity from established national surveys range from 63 per cent (Understanding Society) to 75 per cent (Community Life Survey).13 This propensity to give does vary across UK regions, but not by much. Understanding Society data at this level shows that the proportion of giving is lower in the North East, Yorkshire, and London (Figure 1). It is higher in the South (excluding London), Scotland and in Northern Ireland.14 But differences aren’t huge: propensity to give ranges from 57 per cent (in London) to 68 per cent (in the South East).
Figure 1: Rural residents are more likely to give to charity than urban counterparts, with only slight regional variation
Urban areas lag behind rural ones. Aside from Scotland and Northern Ireland, people in cities and towns are less likely to give than those living outside, likely related to higher deprivation in UK urban areas (outside of London) – Box 2 considers the role of demographics in explaining regional divides.
Box 2: Who Gives? A Profile of UK Donors
The demographics of giving provide relevant context to the UK’s geography of giving more broadly. Age is particularly relevant. Those over the age of 65 are consistently found to be most likely to give to charity, while those between the age of 16-24 are least likely.15 And women are slightly more likely to donate than men in the UK.16
Above all, income is a key determinant of giving behaviour. Those in the highest socioeconomic classes give triple the monetary amount of those in the lowest classes.17 But even income cannot fully explain regional divides, as is clear from the analysis below. This geography of giving highlights less tangible factors, such as civic mindedness, may play a role in this observed variation in donation likelihood across the UK.
There is a clear link between affluence and propensity to give at the sub-regional level
Identifying patterns below the regional level requires different donation data.18 HMRC self-assessment tax returns, filed by roughly a third of those who pay income tax in the UK, provide the proportion of individuals declaring donations in each UK parliamentary constituency. Overall, more than 1.3 million people declared a donation – eleven per cent of those who filed a self-assessment tax return.
Among these million or so donors, there is a clear geography to the constituency-level propensity to give, displayed in Figure 2. Higher donor shares are found mostly in the South (though not in parts of London, consistent with Figure 1), compared to lower rates in parts of Wales, the Midlands, and the North. The proportion of people declaring donations ranges from less than 5 per cent in parts of Birmingham, Liverpool and Blackpool to more than 20 per cent in parts of Winchester, Cambridge, and Edinburgh.19
Figure 2: The propensity to give is higher in the Greater South East (outside of London) than in the North
Incomes clearly explain a lot of the geographical disparity regarding propensity to give among these donors. The proportion of individuals declaring donations in each constituency rises with a constituency’s median income, as shown in Figure 3. This generates a geography to giving as constituencies outside the Greater South East (dark green dots) generally have incomes below the UK median (i.e., left of the purple line) while most Greater South East constituencies (light green dots) have incomes above this level.
Figure 3: Propensity to give rises with income, explaining much of the difference between the Greater South East and the rest of the UK
But this is not the whole story. For a given median income, light green dots tend to fall below the dark green dots. In other words, donors in Greater South East constituencies are less likely to donate to charity than those in constituencies across the rest of the UK with similar average incomes. As a relatively extreme example, both Leeds’ northern suburbs and Croydon have the same median income (£26,200), but residents of the former (16 per cent) are twice as likely to donate to charity as the latter (8 per cent).
This is best illustrated in Figure 4, which compares Greater South East constituencies with those in the rest of the UK for median incomes between £23,000 and £28,000.20 Greater South East constituencies around the UK median income are up to 15 per cent (two percentage points) less likely to donate than constituencies in the rest of the UK in the same income bracket.
Figure 4: But there is a giving gap between the Greater South East and the rest of the UK in the middle of the income distribution
This suggests that people’s propensity to give in the Greater South East is lower than their capacity to give, as suggested by their higher incomes. The reason for this geographical discrepancy is unclear, though low proportions of people giving in the capital play a role.21 Overall it suggests that these richer southern areas would be the place to target to increase the numbers giving to charity nationally.
Those in affluent southern and Scottish cities are more likely to donate, though London lags behind
Beauclair transaction data provides insights into giving behaviour at the city level, recording the proportion of residents spending on charitable causes online or through direct debit.
Again this shows a clear geography of giving. Cambridge residents are almost twice as likely to give than those living in Hull. Of the top 10 cities with the highest propensities to give, seven are in the South, with the remaining three in Scotland (Table 1).22
Table 1: There is a north-south divide for rates of charity spending in UK cities, with nine of the bottom ten outside the South
| Cities: top 10 | Share of people giving to charity (%) | Cities: bottom 10 | Share of people giving to charity (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cambridge | 51 | Wigan | 34 |
| Brighton | 49 | Burnley | 33 |
| Edinburgh | 47 | Sunderland | 33 |
| Oxford | 46 | Slough | 33 |
| Reading | 45 | Leicester | 32 |
| Plymouth | 44 | Mansfield | 32 |
| Aberdeen | 44 | Doncaster | 31 |
| Aldershot | 43 | Stoke | 31 |
| Exeter | 43 | Barnsley | 30 |
| Glasgow | 43 | Hull | 27 |
Cities with stronger economies, measured by the affluence of their residents, have a higher share of residents giving to charity.23 But Figure 5 shows that there are some exceptions – despite the gulf in economic performance between the cities, London has the same propensity to give as Birkenhead. Aberdeen and Glasgow also seem to underperform for their affluence level.
Figure 5: More affluent cities have a higher share of residents spending on charity
Overall, the capacity to give to charity is higher for those at the top end of the income spectrum, largely (but not entirely) explaining the scale of regional disparity in giving propensities. But all data analysed suggests there are ‘giving gaps’ between rich, mainly southern areas (particularly London) and the rest of the UK. These places have the most potential for ‘unlocking’ a larger pool of donors, increasing the sum total of giving across the UK.
But the proportion of people donating to charity only provides a partial story – high numbers could reflect lots of small, one-off donations, for example. Examining the generosity of those who give presents a more complete picture.