The Big Society is so very often considered a domestic phenomenon, and while it does require us to look introspectively at our own values, we should also look around at the rest of the world for inspiration.
While we often, rightly, look towards the mega-rich to donate more of their money – in the mould of Bill Gates – we should not forget the rest of the population.
In a speech to the European Association for Philanthropy & Giving, Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary asked the UK to follow the lead of the United States, where people on middle incomes tend to give far larger amounts to good causes.
In one statistic, the Culture Secretary highlighted how in the United States average per capita giving to culture was £37, compared with just £6 in the UK.
Now some say that the recession has meant that families simply don’t have the ability to give as much money to good causes – and I don’t for one moment wish to ignore their difficulties – but this can’t all be blamed on the current financial crisis as an interesting Times piece (£) recently highlighted.
Aid organisations have reported a startling increase in the number of middle-class Indian households giving to charity. In less than three years the number of donors to charity has grown from 2,000 to 100,000 – giving on average around £40 per month. This is around 2.1% of their income.
This is despite living in country where per capita PPP-adjusted GDP was just $3,290 and with around 20% of the population below the poverty line.
So we should not merely blame reductions in philanthropy on our economic situation. A decrease in giving is not something that’s gradually emerged over the past few years since the Credit Crunch either. Indeed, this is a trend which has been accelerating over the previous decade.
One statistic from the 2009 UK Giving Survey showed that 22.8m adults – 46% of the total – are not giving money at all, up from 33% ten years ago. The amount of money that people are giving may have increased in cash terms, but the base from which it is coming from is getting narrower. Moreover, according to NCVO’s Funding Commission many of our donors are getting older and there is a problem in re-engaging with previous donors as well as attracting new ones.
This is clearly not sustainable.
The Government’s Giving White Paper has some excellent ideas in this area and it is pleasing to see that the Office for Civil Society looking at the issue of funding for the Big Society from every angle – for example giving time is just as important as giving money.
But more than anything else this is going to require a massive culture change.
An interesting idea from the Charities’ Aid Foundation (CAF) is to seek to mirror the “Giving Pledge” which has been so successful in the US. This kind of visible philanthropic leadership is exactly the kind of thing that Britain needs to see more.
They suggest that Coalition MPs and Ministers should sign a pledge to start with. But why not go further?
If we are going to see truly large increases in giving, this has to driven from the bottom up rather than the top down. So perhaps instead of bombarding people with partisan literature for the next four years, political parties should distribute a version of the Giving Pledge throughout the country – asking people to give a proportion of their income to charitable causes each year.
If we could get just one million (5% of the people who currently do not give money to charity) to give £10 a month, we could raise £120,000,000 – over half of what the Office of Civil Society is spending on the Transition Fund.
The Big Society is going to cost money. We cannot rejuvenate our society, create a new culture of voluntarism and co-operation without funding institutions and organisations to mobilise this. However we cannot just look to the Government, we need to look to each other and particularly those who are better off than others to contribute.
There are many reasons why this decentralised funding model would be better, but ultimately given our financial situation we don’t have any alternative.
This will be difficult, particularly as we face a squeeze in real incomes, as people have been made to believe – since the Second World War – that their contribution to society is made through taxation and there is little need for them to give to charity. But if the Government is serious about the Big Society this is one of the largest hurdles that it must overcome.
Otherwise, there is a danger that with the loss of public sector funding, the Big Society may end up running on empty.
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New blogpost: How giving is the fuel for the #BigSociety http://bit.ly/erK8Yx #fb
Interesting stuff. Last week I attended a talk by Lucy Bernholz who has done a lot of research in the States into philanthropy. She talked a lot about harnessing new technology, in specific social media techniques. Ultimately we tend to care about what our friends care about. Giving is usually based on a passion, whether it be that you agree with the cause or like the person who is raising money.
I did want to attend that talk but didn’t get the chance, I gather it was very interesting though.
Good point about social media. I thought this article on Comic Relief was quite interesting particularly towards the end about the effect of social media in helping them to raise money: