Nonmonetary giving — including the provision of time, goods, and advocacy — shouldn’t be overlooked in discussions of global philanthropy, nonprofit group GivingTuesday said in a new report.
Acts such as sponsoring a family member’s education or organizing “meal trains” are common and impactful in countries like Brazil, Kenya, and India, and these often happen outside of networks dominated by nonprofit organizations and registered charities, the organization said.
“If we continue to look at ‘giving’ as being defined as monetary transactions between donors, institutional foundations and registered charities, we’re looking at only a small piece of the full picture,” GivingTuesday said in a blog post. The organization was created in 2012 as a global campaign to encourage more people to give on the Tuesday following the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. It is now an independent nonprofit.
GivingTuesday said that while the COVID-19 pandemic has brought more attention to community care and mutual aid ecosystems that exist outside of the formal philanthropy sector, neither concept is new or uncommon in many parts of the world. Generosity is often the default behavior and “not considered as something extra” in many cultures and societies, the organization said.
Between August and September of 2021, GivingTuesday surveyed 1,000 people in each of seven countries: Brazil, Canada, India, Kenya, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The resulting data provided what GivingTuesday called its “first broad view of patterns of nonmonetary generosity around the world.”
GivingTuesday said the findings challenged the view of the U.S. as the most generous country in terms of philanthropy. That idea is incorrect because it is based only on the amount of giving within a formalized philanthropy structure, which doesn’t exist in every other nation, GivingTuesday said.
“If we continue to look at ‘giving’ as being defined as monetary transactions … we’re looking at only a small piece of the full picture.”
— A GivingTuesday blog post“In the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom, for example, survey respondents were most likely to give money and goods to organized charities,” while giving “time and advocacy” was more highly ranked in other countries, such as India and Kenya, according to the findings. Kenya had the highest percentage of people classified as “super givers,” or those who reported giving money, items, and time. Meanwhile, 25% of respondents in the U.S., U.K., and Canada said that they don’t give at all.
The organization said these latest findings build on the results of a 2020 survey about U.S. giving. In that study, 62% of participants said they preferred to give directly to individuals in need instead of via a formal network, and 76% of respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 said they would rather not go through a nonprofit organization, platform, or website for their giving. People who were younger, nonwhite, and residing in southern states were also more likely to engage in mutual aid such as donating food and clothing, the 2020 survey found.
About the author
Stephanie Beasley@Steph_Beasley
Stephanie Beasley is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers global philanthropy with a focus on regulations and policy. She is an alumna of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Oberlin College and has a background in Latin American studies. She previously covered transportation security at POLITICO.
