The number of charity donations has soared by 32% in the last week after the Ukrainian conflict led to a “wave of charitability” across the UK.
About Loyalty’s weekly public research saw a reported jump in donations from around 9.3 million to 12.3 million people who have given to charity.
The huge rise is assumed a direct response to the Ukrainian humanitarian appeal and is the highest number of donations reported by survey responders since About Loyalty started tracking public sentiment two years ago.
Richard Spencer, director of About Loyalty, said:
“We have all been deeply moved by the harrowing images and stories coming out of Ukraine on a daily basis.
“The crisis has catalysed a wave of charitability across the UK. We’ve seen more solidarity and increases in altruism and empathy and a surge in charity donations in direct response to the war and the many appeals for support to help the people of Ukraine.”
Richard believes the increase won’t be just for international charities and predicted a “halo effect” for all charities.
He explained: “Most charity fundraising programmes are likely to benefit from the heightened solidarity and the simple fact that more people are giving to charity.
“This will be reinforced and underpinned by the steady increases that we’ve seen in altruism, empathy and solidarity more generally.”
For charities, this means it's important to keep talking to your supporters – they love you just as much, even if there’s a war that is also capturing some of their focus. Keep reassuring, reminding, and reinforcing, so that they understand the difference their support makes, and feel your thanks.
About our public research – On a weekly basis, since March 2020, we have asked a sample of 2,000 members of the UK adult population a series of questions about how they are feeling and what they have done in the last seven days.
This week, those who said they “donated to charity” increased from 18.6% to 24.6% this week. Assuming there are 50 million adults in the UK, this equates to an increase from 9.3 million to 12.3 million people – or three million more people donating to charity.