It’s a boom time for major giving, says nfpSynergy report

The Major Donor Giving Research Report gathers together the findings of research on major donors from the past five years

The UK is experiencing a “boom time” for major giving, an nfpSynergy report that collates available research on major donors has concluded.

The report, Major Donor Giving Research Report: an updated synthesis of research into major donors and philanthropic giving, published today by the research consultancy, summarises the findings of research on major donors from the past five years.

The study points out that much has changed since nfpSynergy compiled a similar report five years ago, particularly in the wake of the vote to leave the European Union. But despite fears about the impact of Brexit on the economy, the number of billionaires has increased to record levels since the vote, the report says.

“Whilst data on major donor giving since the Brexit vote is not yet available, major donor fundraising continues to be a fast-growing element of UK charity fundraising activity, and a small proportion of ‘major’ donors disproportionately shape giving in the UK,” the report says.

“There is now credible year-on-year data to substantiate claims of it being (at least pre-Brexit) a ‘boom time’ for UK philanthropy.”

The report draws on the Coutts Million Pound Donors Report 2016 by University of Kent academic Beth Breeze to support its conclusions, and also highlights recommendations from Breeze’s report in collaboration with Theresa Lloyd, Richer Lives: why rich people give, both which called on charities to address their lack of confidence in their own competence at asking for major donations.

Joe Saxton, co-founder of nfpSynergy, said: “Most people I talk to would say that major donors are going to be a bigger part of the funding mix because the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation will make it hard to talk to large databases of donors.

“Major donors will be more likely to feature in people’s work and thinking going forward.”

The report points out that there is no set definition of what constitutes a major donor, although Breeze suggests £5,000 as an industry standard, and instead says they are more generally defined as people who make large personal donations to charitable organisations

It takes into account research from the US, which it concludes remains significantly ahead of any other country in terms of giving, having given $258.5bn (£197bn) to charity in 2015, compared with $17.4bn (£13.2bn) in the UK. This might be due, research suggests, to differences between the tax regimes and the tendency for giving in the US to be more public than in the UK.

But the report says there is more to large-scale philanthropy than money.

“It remains easy to define major donors in financial terms, yet this is to underestimate the breadth of engagement that major donors may offer the charity sector, whether this is time, advice, expertise and contacts,” it says.

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Regulator to update fundraising code to include standards for online giving platforms

It is one of the developments from a meeting last week involving the Fundraising Regulator, Charity Commission and major giving platforms

The Fundraising Regulator will update the Code of Fundraising Practice to include standards for online giving platforms, following a meeting between charity regulators and the platforms last week.

The Fundraising Regulator, the Charity Commission and representatives from 14 of the online giving platforms met last week to discuss issues such as how to tackle fraud on websites that allow people to set up fundraising pages.

In a joint statement published yesterday, attendees at the meeting said the code had been among the topics discussed.

The statement said: “The Fundraising Regulator is reviewing the Code of Fundraising Practice and wants to update and expand the standards for online fundraising set out in the code.

“Platforms will work with the Fundraising Regulator to contribute to the review of the code.”

The regulator last month announced a wider consultation on possible changes to the code, which is due to be launched later this month.

At the meeting, the platforms also committed to working with the regulators to review “their resilience to fraud and to create a new forum to share advice and intelligence about potential fraud threats”, the joint statement said.

And they have committed to offering advice and guidance to the individuals setting up fundraising pages about the choices available to them and their responsibilities.

Although all the platforms said they already had robust anti-fraud measures in place, the statement said: “More can be done, working collaboratively, to ensure clear and consistent advice across different platforms and generally to the public.

“It is critical to avoid confusion about, for example, accountability to the Charity Commission, eligibility for Gift Aid, and what happens in the event of a failed appeal.

“Platforms agree to work with the Charity Commission and Fundraising Regulator to agree and disseminate clear and consistent public advice about the choices available for donating.

The Charity Commission and the Fundraising Regulator will report back to Tracey Crouch, the Minister for Civil Society, on the progress of discussions and whether they think the current regulatory framework is adequate, the statement said.

It added that online fundraising platforms that had not attended the meeting were invited to join future discussions.

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Regulators meet online giving platforms to discuss fraud prevention

The Charity Commission and the Fundraising Regulator are meeting representatives from 14 of the biggest operators, including JustGiving and Virgin Money Giving, to agree principles

The Charity Commission and the Fundraising Regulator are meeting senior representatives from online giving platforms to discuss issues such as how to combat fraud.

The meeting, which is taking place today, brings the regulators together with 14 of the biggest fundraising platforms, including JustGiving, BT MyDonate, GoFundMe and Virgin Money Giving.

In a statement, the commission said: “The aim of the summit is to collectively agree some principles that will ensure individuals are supported when setting up or donating to online appeals, help to increase public trust and confidence in charity and online giving, and ensure that charitable resources in the short, medium and long-term are used as effectively as possible.”

The commission said these issues were especially important in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the UK this year and the Grenfell Tower fire, which prompted the public raise to more than £38m for those affected, largely through online fundraising platforms.

But concerns were raised about the veracity of some of the fundraising pages. In April, JustGiving seized control of a fundraising page on its site that purported to have been set up in memory of Aysha Frade, who was killed the previous month in the terrorist attack on Westminster, after users spotted it had been started by a woman who had the same name as someone convicted of fraud.

Attendees at the meeting will discuss how to protect charitable funds from fraud or misrepresentation, how to ensure individuals understand the responsibility they are taking on in setting up a fundraising page and are supported to do so, and how to provide transparent information about fees and the amount of money will go to the platforms themselves.

The meeting will also explore whether the self-regulatory regime set out in the Code of Fundraising Practice was the appropriate way to assure the public and parliament that major giving platforms were adhering to high standards and transparency, the commission statement said.

Online platforms that allow private individuals to collect donations for their chosen causes and share their fundraising appeals with friends and family have become increasingly popular. JustGiving’s chief operating officer, Charlie Wells, predicts that online donations will represent 50 per cent of online giving by 2020.

Jo Barnett, executive director at Virgin Money Giving, told Third Sector the platform was aware of the importance of keeping charitable donations safe.

“The key thing we would like to see progressed through the summit is an understanding of how fundraising platforms can work together to provide greater transparency, minimise fraud and support charities in driving up new income,” she said.

Helen Stephenson, chief executive of the Charity Commission, said the emergence of new crowdfunding and online giving sites had had a positive impact on charitable giving in the UK and she hoped the meeting would allow the organisations involved to build on this success and to identify what steps were needed in the future.

“We want to ensure that the public are sufficiently informed about online giving and can set up appeals and donate with confidence,” she said.

Stephen Dunmore, chief executive of the Fundraising Regulator, said it was important that online platform operators supported both the legal requirements and the good practice set out in the Code of Fundraising Practice.

“We look forward to building good working relationships with the online platforms to ensure that they support the code and can help develop it in future, as well as to assure the public that they can donate safely when they use the platform of their choice,” he said.

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UK falls to eleventh place in World Giving Index

The Charities Aid Foundation’s annual index put the UK in eighth last year; Myanmar has retained top spot

The UK has continued to slide down the list of the world’s most generous countries, the Charities Aid Foundation’s World Giving Index 2017 has revealed.

The UK fell three places from eighth in 2016 to 11th position on this year’s list, which gauges the generosity of countries by combining how much the public donate to good causes, how much time they spend volunteering and how likely they are to help strangers. The UK was in sixth place in the 2015 index.

The latest index, published today, is based on a survey of more than 146,000 people in 139 countries, asking whether they had in the past month donated to a good cause, volunteered or helped a stranger.

It says that 64 per cent of people in the UK said they had given money to charity, a fall of five percentage points on last year. The proportion of people in the UK who said they had helped a stranger fell by three percentage points on last year to 58 per cent, and those who said they had volunteered fell by five percentage points to 28 per cent.

Myanmar retains its position at the top of the list for the fourth year running, but has experienced a drop in its overall score, from 70 to 65 per cent.

Myanmar’s position at the top of the list is likely to be because of the high proportion of Buddhists in the country, the report says, but it acknowledges the achievement is likely to be contrasted with recent news stories about the treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority in the country.

“At this point, it is important to remember that the World Giving Index measures only the charitable activities of the general population within a country, and does not take wider issues affecting society into account,” the report says.

“As such, we make no attempt to rationalise negative or mitigating factors in the World Giving Index.”

Generosity has reduced as a whole across the world, the report indicates, with participation in both donating money and helping a stranger down by 1.8 percentage points and volunteering down by 0.8 percentage points on last year.

Only six of the G20 countries appear in the top 20 and all have lower overall scores than last year.

Africa is the only continent to buck the trend, with an increase in its average score across all three behaviours when compared with its five-year average.

Sir John Low, chief executive of CAF, said it was too early to know if the overall fall in world giving was a cause for real concern, but it was a reminder not to take global generosity for granted.

“The big story this year is the amazing rise in giving across Africa,” he said. “Around the world, economic development is lifting the income of millions of people and it is truly humbling to see that the natural reaction to increasing wealth is to give back to society.

“Governments worldwide should make it a priority to encourage giving, build up civil society and seize the opportunity to translate economic development into a culture of generosity that will benefit everyone.”

Mike Smith, head of external affairs at the Institute of Fundraising, said: “We need to wait and see whether the fall in giving reported in this paper is simply an anomaly, or part of a trend.

“Donations from the public, from putting money in a collection box to leaving a gift to charity in a will, are vital. Asking people to donate to the causes they care about plays an essential role. About 81 per cent of people say that they donate to a charity only after being asked to do so.”

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