Charitable giving "down 25% over the last decade", say CAF
Howard Lake | 13 November 2003 | News
Despite a recent upturn, giving to charity has fallen by 25% as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) over the last decade, according to Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).
Speaking at the CAF annual conference today,
Stephen Ainger, Chief Executive, highlighted the funding challenges facing the voluntary sector.
Total individual giving declined year on year in the 1990’s and only started
to rise with the growth in more professional fundraising, and the introduction of new tax incentives in 2000. However, giving is still not increasing in line with the growth in the economy.
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“This is a major issue for charities, which can only be addressed by changing the culture of giving which includes the need for charities to be much more transparent about what they do and the impact they have. The
current lack of transparency in many areas in the sector is making it harder to reverse this long term decline in giving. Greater transparency will lead, we believe, to increased support for charities from donors and enhanced confidence in us”, said Ainger.
Many charities were also failing to take advantage of the tax incentives currently provided by government. Mr Ainger said: “It is a scandal that only about a third of voluntary giving is tax effective. We must all seek to ensure that the government’s tax concessions are fully used.”
Stephen Ainger also emphasised that the voluntary sector should build on its
successes.
“Receipts in payroll giving, for instance, have grown by 118% since 1999. The government’s 10% supplement has clearly had a positive effect on this figure and the number of employers offering schemes has doubled from 5,000 to 10,000 over the last five years. Any plan to end the supplement at this
stage would be short-sighted.”
Mr Ainger noted that public sector funding of voluntary organisations had now reached 40%, with some parts of the charity sector receiving well over 50% of all their funds from central and local government.
“Charities need to examine how this growth in government funding might affect the behaviour of donors. Once again, transparency is central as it will be important that donors fully understand why some charities are publicly funded through contracts to this extent. Also, we need ensure that
the initiatives and programmes of charities, which receive substantial government funding, are not dominated by a government agenda.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.