Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the share of people globally taking part in charitable actions rose to 45 percent in 2021, an increase of 5 percent, a report from the Charities Aid Foundation finds.

The report, World Giving Index 2022: A global view of giving trends  (26 pages, PDF), is a longitudinal study begun in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis and includes data collected from 1.95 million in-person and remote interviews conducted by Gallup across 119 countries through March 2022. The study measures participation in acts of charity, asking individuals if they had donated money, helped a stranger, or volunteered time for some charitable purpose in the previous year. Notably, the survey does not measure the dollar value of funds distributed.

Overall, 35 percent of people surveyed globally donated to charity and 62 percent helped a stranger—both record highs—while the share of individuals volunteering their time increased to 23 percent, the highest measure since 2009. For the fifth consecutive year, Indonesia received the highest score as the most generous country in the world. With a strong cultural tradition of religious giving, 85 percent of Indonesians donated money to charity, 59 percent helped a stranger, and 63 percent volunteered in the past year. The United States placed third on the list—a substantive rebound from 2020, which saw charitable participation in the U.S. fall to 19th in the global ranking. In 2021, 61 percent of Americans donated to charity, 80 percent helped a stranger, and 37 percent volunteered. The report noted that although widespread poverty, famine, civil unrest or war, and political instability were often factors in low giving scores, many countries such as Myanmar (sixth on the list overall) and Ukraine (10th) nonetheless demonstrated high levels of charitable participation.

“Giving takes different forms around the globe, and even the definitions of what constitutes charity and generosity differ across cultures,” said Charities Aid Foundation CEO Neil Heslop. “[I]n the wake of two difficult years and with further challenges likely to come, we continue to observe great instances of global generosity.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Rudi Suardi)