Charity: Volunteer Hours Down, Fewer Donators and Donor Participation at 10 yr Low?

Singaporeans open wallets and hearts to charity: Really?

After I wrote the article “Share-a-Gift%94-Beneficiaries-or-gifts-drop-from-460-000-to-35-000” (Dec 19) (the last sentence of my article was “Is it because Singaporeans have become less “generous”?”) - I was not surprised to read in the Straits Times news report “Singaporeans open wallets and their hearts to charity” (Dec 20) that “the number of people donating and volunteering fell. In 2012, 91 per cent of 1,500 interviewees said they gave money to charities, but the number fell to 83 per cent this year when more than 1,800 were polled.

Similarly, only 18 per cent volunteered this year, compared with 32 per cent of those polled two years ago.

NVPC report is even worse

For the last three surveys, those who earn less than $1,000 a month have been giving between 1.4 per cent and 2 per cent of their wages, compared with 0.6 per cent for those who are pulling in $5,000 to $6,000 a month.” – Actually, if you look at the NVPC’s report – it is even worse.

Volunteer hours dropped by 26m

The total volunteer hours decreased from 91 million in 2012 to only 66 million hours in 2014 – a huge drop of  27 per cent.

Donor participation at 10-year low

The donor participation at 83 per cent in 2014, from 91 per cent in 2012, is a 10-year low compared to 97 per cent in 2004.

5 of 6 wage categories donated less