Charity Begins At Home

Have you donated money to an organization recently? Have you ever volunteered your time to a charity organization? Have you ever helped someone you didn’t know?

Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) organized a survey around the world including these three questions. The results were published at the beginning of September. They revealed that 20% of the population had volunteered their time in the last month, 30% had donated money to a charity, and 45% of them had helped a stranger. 

Data was collected from 153 countries representing nearly 95% of the world’s population. 1,000 questionnaires were answered by a population aged 16 or over in most of the countries. CAF wanted to find out which countries were the most charitable and they created a “World Giving Index”. Australia and New Zealand were the most “giving” countries in the world. They were followed by Canada, Ireland, Switzerland and the USA. The top of the list was full of rich countries, but nearly half of the top 20 places were occupied by developing nations such as Guinea and Turkmenistan.

The results also showed that people are more likely to give as they get older, but less likely to aid strangers in life. In many countries, people over 50 are least likely to help a stranger. Women are less likely to help a stranger than men. Men are more likely to volunteer. On the other hand, women are slightly more likely than men to give money (30% versus 29%).

CAF also asked their interviewees to imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 to 10. 0 was representing the worst possible life, and 10 was representing the best. Then they were asked to place themselves on the step of the ladder which reflected the way they felt about their life at the moment.

The data showed that the link between giving of money and happiness is stronger than the link between wealth and giving. It means that if the person lives in a country where people are generally happy, they are more likely to give to charity than if the one lives in an affluent country.