Donations fall to record lows in the pandemic
Cancelled events and pandemic induced economic hardship meant charitable giving has fallen to record lows in 2020. New data suggests the worst might now be over.
The JBWere NAB Charitable Giving Index released in July found that while charitable giving had been on the rise, the drop in donations in 2020 brought the index average down to mid-2016 levels, losing the gains of the past five years.
This is the first set of data to analyse the rates of philanthropic giving since the start of the pandemic, following predictions in April 2020 that giving would drop by 7.1 per cent in 2020, and then by a further 11.9 per cent in 2021. The predictions were relatively accurate, with giving dropping by around four per cent in 2020, and then 16 per cent in the first half of the 2020/21 financial year.
Report author John Mcleod said that while mass-market giving dropped during the pandemic, corporate giving and the top end of philanthropic giving remained strong throughout 2020 and beyond.
Mr McLeod said that this trend reflected differing economic conditions across the economy and the broader long-term trends of widening income and wealth inequalities in Australian society, and was something that charities needed to be alert to. He said charities should be trying to understand basic corporate philanthropy and engage more with it.
Whilst the full effect of the pandemic is still to be understood, research has revealed that many not-for-profit organisations faced, and continue to face, difficulties in delivering on their purpose.
JBWere NAB Charitable Giving Index report