Nearly two thirds of the planet’s population gave to charity last year: World Giving Report 2025

Amid the global polycrisis challenges, the Charities Aid Foundation’s annual report provided the buoying news that 64% of people globally gave money to good causes in 2024. While Nigeria topped the rankings, the US came 46th and Australia 68th.

The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) recently released their World Giving Report 2025 evolving from the World Giving Index that has been published annually during the last 15 years. The report ranks Australia’s generosity on a global scale highlighting the role for philanthropy to respond to the needs of our time.

The findings dig deeper than ever before into the attitudes and behaviours of the public to reveal groundbreaking insights on the nature of generosity from >50,000 respondents across 101 countries and territories around the world, thanks to the collaboration with 28 partners.

This evolution comes at a pivotal time where “traditional funding models need to change as patterns of behaviour evolve and governments cut back on their aid and development spending with philanthropy seeking to respond”, says Chief Executive, Neil Heslop OBE. Neil describes how generosity doesn’t necessarily “correlate with wealth or even security, but rather with the perception of necessity”.

Key findings of the report are:

• Almost two-thirds (64%) of people globally gave money to good causes in 2024
• Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana and China achieved the largest generosity scores based on the average percentage of income donated at 2.83%, 2.45%, 2.19% and 2.19% respectively
• Australia was ranked 68^th in the World Giving Report with an average percentage of income donated of 0.73%, behind peers such as New Zealand (ranked 61 with 0.76% average percentage of income donated), Canada (ranked 57 and 0.80%) and the USA (ranked 46 and 0.97%)

Comparing this report’s finding with official data from Australia, we can see a strong base to grow giving through our giving funds and individual giving. There were approximately 8,467 structured philanthropic entities in Australia in 2023 including private ancillary funds, public ancillary funds and other trusts[1], and 27.81% of Australian taxpayers made a tax-deductible donation in 2022-23 at a median donation size of $150. Those earning $1 million and above donated 9.88% of their taxable income.

Donors supported a wide range of causes in 2024. The only cause that appears among the top five for each continent is children and young people, with three in 10 donors supporting the cause globally. Caring about a cause is by far the most common reason people cited for donating money, say 65% of donors. Not being able to afford it was the main reason people said they did not donate last year (40% of respondents).

The report found that the social norms in a society were positively related to generosity: if there were more social norms – social reasons – for donating, this correlated with a higher average percentage of income donated. As shown in the graph below, where there was more than one social reason to give the average percentage of income donated increased above 1% in many countries.

President and CEO of CAF America, Jessie Krafft reflects on the findings: “With access to funders and policymakers and strong networks across community contexts, we can use these connections where social norms are weaker to foster more and more impactful giving. We must reflect on how we can work more efficiently and more collaboratively to employ philanthropy’s ability to cut across false silos.”

Australia is in a good position to deliver more and impactful giving with more than 4.4 million taxpayers making a tax-deductible donation annually[2], a strong base of women’s philanthropy and estimated total inheritances of around $150 billion in 2024, with the next 20 years totalling $5.4 trillion[3].

Discussions at Philanthropy Australia’s successful Leadership Summit last month of ~450 delegates demonstrated the energy and urgency leaders feel across the sector to understand how philanthropy, the for-purpose sector, civil society and government can work together differently to tackle the interconnected challenges facing the world. As Philanthropy Australia celebrates its 50^th year, and marks the end of its current strategy phase, we are now moving into our next strategy to build on that legacy as we chart our path forward.

Catch up on the Summit breakout sessions here at Part 1 and Part 2.

Read more about Philanthropy Australia’s incoming strategy here.

[1] Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), 2023, Australian Charities Report 9th edition
[2] Australia Tax Office (ATO) Taxation Statistics 2022-23
[3] JbWere (2024), The Bequests Report