Public give £13.9bn to charities

THE British public donated a record £13.9bn to charity in

2023, with some of the country’s least affluent areas among the most generous, a new report reveals.

The total marks a 9% increase on the 2022 figure – which stood at £12.7bn – as average monthly donations increased by nearly 40% to reach £65.

The report, produced by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), also shows that some of the UK’s poorest areas gave the most to charitable causes over the past year as a proportion of household income.

But the report highlighted that the number of people regularly donating to charity had fallen from 65% in 2019 to fewer than six in 10 (58%) in 2023.

The CAF said it was only because donors’ average contributions had increased that the total figure had gone up.

The pandemic and cost-of-living crisis placed “significant pressure” on charities, which faced greater demand and declining income, the registered charity added.

Some 75% of British adults did at least one charitable activity in the past 12 months, including donating, volunteering, and sponsoring.

On average, constituencies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland gave more, as a proportion of income, than those in England.

Neil Heslop, chief executive of CAF, said: “The act of giving connects us to one another in communities and across society – a more giving society can be one with a stronger social fabric.

“But it’s concerning that we’re relying on a dwindling group of regular givers, and the typical donation is static and eroded by inflation.”

The report was produced from an online survey with a sample size of 13,164.