What the inaugural Global Trends in Giving Report tells us about donors worldwide

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

The survey for the 2017 Global Trends in Giving Report was conducted online, in English, French, and Spanish, and questioned 4,084 donors in 94 countries, across six continents. The vast majority of the donors participated in English and were based in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, with plans for the 2018 survey to also be conducted in Arabic and Portuguese to extend its reach. It is sponsored by the Public Interest Registry and researched by Nonprofit Tech for Good.

Global giving trends

Donors worldwide are predominately women (73%) who have a liberal ideology (61%) and are 37 years old or older (73%). The survey found that globally, the vast majority of donors prefer to give online (61%) with 14% preferring to give by direct mail, 14% via fundraising events, 6% by mobile, and 5% through workplace giving. 54% are regular givers, with the vast majority of these – 82% – giving monthly. 45% of donors give to charities outside of their own country.

What inspires people to give

Seventy-five per cent of donors questioned globally for the report agreed that social media is the primary news source for staying up to date with their favourite charities, and 25% say social media also inspires them the most to give. Facebook seems to work best here, according to the survey results, with 62% inspired to give by this channel, compared to 15% for Twitter, 10% for Instagram, and 6% for YouTube. LinkedIn inspires more online donations at 3% than WhatsApp (1.4%), Google+ (.4%), Tumblr (.4%), Medium (.4%), Pinterest (.2%), and Snapchat (.1%) combined.

Photo courtesy of AMISOM Public Information.

Source: UK Fundraising (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Investing
Tags
global development, impact investing, nonprofits