Myanmar Tops In Giving
The Charities Aid Foundation (UK) has published its World Giving Index, which uses three simple questions to measure ‘giving’ around the world. The Gallup polling organization asked these questions in 145 countries during 2014.
Here are the questions:
Have you done any of the following in the past month?
- Helped a stranger, or someone you didn’t know who needed help?
- Donated money to a charity?
- Volunteered your time to an organisation?
How does Myanmar manage to come out on top? Here’s what CAF says about Myanmar:
“As well as maintaining its top ranking for donating money, Myanmar also secures first place for volunteering time – the first country to be placed top for two of the three ways of giving since 2010. As highlighted previously, Myanmar’s strong culture of Theravada Buddhism, in which devotees practice Sangha Dana, continues to drive high levels of giving. Myanmar deserves to be lauded for its culture of generosity but sadly, the achievement will inevitably be contrasted to the continuing plight of the Rohingya people within the country.”
That statement uses the word ‘generosity’, which I think better sums up the combination of donating, volunteering and ‘helping’. The report includes interesting discussion of other spiritual and cultural customs in certain countries that account for what might otherwise seem to be anomalies in the findings.
For those of a more material bent (fundraisers?), here are the Top 10 rankings for donating money:
Overall, 31.5% gave money to a charity in the month prior to their interview, a rise of 3.2% over the previous year. This despite the fact that of the world’s ten most populous countries (which constitute sixty per cent of the world’s population aged 15 and over), seven rank outside of the World Giving Index Top 50 this year, with five even outside of the Top 100.
Here are the Top 20 overall rankings:
And finally, most improved country in the rankings — Croatia. And that’s due to fundraising, according to CAF:
“Croatia, along with Montenegro and Bosnia Herzegovina (which appear at number six and nine in this most improved list), all experienced notable increases in donating money. It is likely that the fundraising efforts following extensive flooding throughout Southern Europe in May 2014 are reflected in these raised giving levels: well-organised fundraising efforts, with a prevalence of mobile phone use and SMS donations, particularly in Croatia and Montenegro meant that a high proportion of people were able to donate to relief efforts.”
The Agitator has a world-wide readership, but we’ve yet to detect a reader in Croatia. Need to get some of Roger’s Retention Fundraising books over there!
Tom
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