Lord Joffe calls on the wealthy to get Britain giving
Howard Lake | 26 May 2004 | News
Speaking to the House of Lords on Wednesday 26 May, Lord Joel Joffe CBE will draw attention to the 25% fall in individual charitable donations as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the ten years since 1992, during which period personal wealth has doubled and the rich have prospered like never before.
In 1992, individual giving amounted to 1.2% of GDP and yet by 2002, this had fallen to 0.9%, a decrease of 25%. Meanwhile, in the USA – where there is an ingrained culture of giving – donations increased by 15% of GDP. Lord Joffe says:
“It is astonishing that although the richest 1% of the population now own around one quarter of the total marketable wealth in this country while the poorest 50% own only 5% between them, it is the poorer donors who are giving a much higher proportion of their income to charity. While wealthy people on average donate only 0.7% of their household expenditure to charity, the
poorest donors are giving more than three times that (3%).
“If the level of giving is to increase significantly, it is the well off who must substantially increase the level of their donations. Do we want a society where the wealthy focus solely upon self-gratification buying yachts, personal jets and other play things, or a caring society where everyone contributes as generously as they can to make a better society for all?”
Lord Joffe proposes the establishment of a benchmark for charitable giving in the UK. Individuals should be encouraged to consider their giving in relation to their income and wealth, giving an average of 1.5% to charity.
This benchmark could be graded according to each individual’s wealth with the well-off aiming to give a minimum of 2% each year and higher for those that are particularly wealthy, going down to virtually nothing for those who struggle to get by on annual incomes below £10,000. The overall target should be for individual donations to double over the next ten years. It is the wealthy, rather than the poor, who should lead the way.
– Ends –
Media Enquiries
Lucinda Gould 020 7930 2629 / 07712 045 308
The Giving Campaign
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Notes to editors
Lord Joel Joffe is Chair of The Giving Campaign – a national initiative working to promote a culture of giving in the UK.
| Speech Lords re Giving Debate on 26 May 2004.doc | 36.5 KB |
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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.