THE STATE OF GENEROSITY IN 2025
Widening the Lens
Letter from the Chief Data Officer
GivingTuesday has always celebrated individual giving’s role in meeting community needs. That may seem obvious. Yet at a time when institutional support is becoming less predictable and increasingly displaced, it’s become more important than ever to understand how people and communities care for one another.
For years, our understanding of generosity was shaped by what was easiest to measure: charitable donations, institutional philanthropy, and formal aid. Those systems matter enormously, even if they have never captured the full picture of how people support one another.
A defining story of 2025 in the philanthropy and aid world was the dismantling of USAID, and the ripple effects that followed throughout the global giving ecosystem. There is no question that these changes caused long-term harm to hundreds of worthwhile efforts around the world. But it has also highlighted something that was always true: Formal institutions are only one part of civil society. Surrounding them exists a far broader ecosystem of community care that has always sustained people, even when it has remained largely invisible.
In this report, we see that as governments recede from playing a central role, an intersection of societal generosity and activism are stepping up. Other forms of capital, particularly from individuals, account for a huge portion of what supports aid around the world.
The global political climate often appears to reward myopia and self-interest, but that’s not what we see in the data. People don’t only give when it’s easy or optimistic to do so: They continue to show up for one another, even — or especially — amid uncertainty. The foundation of generosity is proving remarkably resilient.
This echoes a theme we have been exploring for several years: In 2022, “Rethinking Resilience” argued that generosity is not just a response to crisis, it is key to community resilience. In 2024’s “Generosity as Resilience,” we explored how generous action strengthens social cohesion in fractured times. And in countries where there has been political upheaval, like in Britain and the US, community ties have actually strengthened.
This does not mean we can be complacent. We cannot simply assume that individual resilience will compensate for institutional decline. If we do, we'll miss the opportunity to ask whether societal conditions exist to enable people to support one another in the ways they want to.
As the State of Generosity report has evolved, so too has our understanding of generosity. New datasets tell us how people around the world give in multiple ways. We find near-universal multi-modal generosity: Most people give in some form, often in many ways, including volunteering, direct aid, advocacy, and donation. And when people give, they do so across borders, and across differences in politics, identity, and worldview.
It’s often noted that the US population donates more in monetary terms than anywhere else in the world. But when we account for factors like household income, some countries — like Kenya — appear among the most generous around the world. A narrow focus on monetary sums most definitely does not tell the entire story.
I hesitate to describe this as “a post-aid world,” because I would hope that we eventually return to a political environment that once again embraces international cooperation. But beyond the context in which we’re now living, more global data — like that found in this report — can illustrate how people are creating other systems, and how they’re feeling about community care. A better understanding of these support systems can inform new and vital ecosystems, rather than a return to the kind of narrow definitions of resource deployment that characterized legacy philanthropy and aid in the past.
We now see where the new civic infrastructure is going to be. Now it’s imperative that we understand it better and that we find more ways to support it.
Woodrow Rosenbaum
Chief Data Officer
GivingTuesday
Explore the reports
HOW INDIVIDUALS DRIVE GIVING AROUND THE WORLD
Global Aid Flows
Key Takeaways:
While official development aid, like USAID and comparable aid from other countries, has decreased, every other form of giving has increased.
As we have tracked in previous years, giving from individuals dwarfs the amounts allocated by government aid, institutional philanthropy, and corporate philanthropy.
Using new methodology based on household income rather than overall monetary value, we determined the top five most generous countries are Indonesia, Nigeria, Ghana, Kuwait, and Zambia — all located in regions whose generosity is likely undercounted by methods built around Western giving norms.
Higher giving rates tend to show up in countries with stronger civic enabling environments, where organizations can operate freely and philanthropy is legally supported. Where giving rates are lower, this likely reflects the lasting effects of government policies that historically restricted independent civil society, making it difficult for people to donate, organize, or give through formal channels.
The single largest source of global aid is remittances, totaling $690 billion to low- and middle-income countries and directly involving about one in nine people worldwide.
HOW INDIVIDUALS DRIVE GIVING AROUND THE WORLD
World Monetary Giving
For the past two years, we have produced estimates of global monetary flows in giving, using available macro-economic indices.
Using the most recent figures available at the time of publishing, we estimate that nearly two trillion dollars (USD $1.95 trillion) flows worldwide annually to improve people’s lives. We see indications that this number represents some real growth from when we first began compiling this estimate in 2023.
A detailed account of how each component changed is in our technical appendix.
Every form of aid increased in 2025, except for official development assistance (ODA).
Various types of giving driven by individuals and communities rose in 2025. Donations from individuals in the US increased (GivingUSA), as did grants from individuals through donor-advised funds. Giving mediated by US religious congregations increased, as did bequests (donations made through a will) (GivingUSA). Individual giving across all its forms (remittances, donations to nonprofits, bequests, to/through congregations, and using donor advised funds) totalled $1.616 trillion in 2025.
Donations from individuals around the world increased, typically to organizations in the same country, as did remittances, the latter according to the US Federal Reserve.
Total Worldwide Aid Flows (1 box = $2B)
While US foundation grantmaking grew modestly, corporate philanthropy saw a notably stronger increase. ¹
As noted earlier, official development assistance shrank significantly, primarily as a result of the shuttering of USAID as well as cuts to aid from countries in the European Union and beyond.
¹Reported year-over-year (YOY) changes come from Giving USA 2025 analysis of 2023–2024 changes
| Source of money | YoY change (2024 vs 2025) | Amount | Data reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual donations in the US | +4.8% | $396.5B | GivingUSA |
| Individuals outside the US, within-country | +6.2% | $252B* | GivingTuesday estimate, based on CAF WGI |
| US congregational giving (to or through) | +2.1% | $146.5B | Lake Institute |
| US bequests | +7.4% | $45.9B | GivingUSA |
| US corporate philanthropy | +9.1% | $44B | GivingUSA |
| Remittances | +2.8% | $690B* | World Bank / US Federal Reserve |
| US foundation grantmaking | +2.4% | $110B | GivingUSA |
| Donor advised fund (DAF) grants to organizations | +17.9% | $65B | DAF Research Collaborative Update |
| Official development assistance (ODA) | -23.1% | $174B* | OECD |
World Map of Individual Giving
In this year’s report, we wanted to understand where generosity culture is strongest relative to what people have. The world map reflects our best, current understanding of how generosity around the world manifests across a varied landscape of different socioeconomic norms.²
We combined the Charity Aid Foundation's World Giving Index (CAF WGI) with other adjustments from the literature and GDP per capita to estimate individual domestic giving as a percent of total annual household income. This is an expanded look at the $252 billion in our global aid flows chart. This perspective controls for differences in wealth and highlights the effect of cultural norms on generosity³. We can see that generosity culture varies in ways not explained by geography. The 2024 CAF WGI global survey data covers 142 countries⁴ and reports the percent in each country that gave money, volunteered, or helped a stranger in the past year. Giving rates tend to be similar for each country from one year to the next, making it a stable benchmark for level of engagement by country.
Viewed this way, the top five most generous countries are Indonesia (1.23% of household income)⁵, Nigeria (1.16%), Ghana (1.10%), Kuwait (1.01%), and Zambia (1.00%). The United States falls in the upper middle tier at 0.82% of household income⁶. The Philanthropy Roundtable estimates that total charitable contributions from all domestic sources has hovered around 2% for past decades, and that total within-country giving from individuals in the US would fall around 1.2% of GDP.
² An increasing body of evidence (from us and others) points to cultural norms being a major factor in determining why some countries are more generous to others. The effects of religion tend to blend into culture when the vast majority of people belong to a common religion. Religious norms become cultural norms, and even secular citizens adopt similar behaviors. In contrast, religiosity and GDP are inversely correlated and cultures tend to abandon religious norms as the majority of the population stops attending regular religious services (as has been happening in Europe for decades). The US has long been an outlier among countries in that it has higher rates of generosity than one would predict looking at religion. In a sense, its historical religious context has become part of its modern social fabric, and has not declined in Europe.
³ Some relevant papers that informed our model include: National Context, Religiosity, and Volunteering: Results from 53 Countries; 2009Gallup survey on global religiosity; APA Psyc Net’s Religiosity and prosocial behavior at national level; 2019 World Happiness Report, Chapter 4: Happiness and prosocial behavior: An evaluation of the evidence.
⁴ Our estimate excludes the countries shown in gray on the map — mostly in central Africa and some closed societies elsewhere — because CAF's World Giving Index (and Gallup polling, their survey vendor) has no data for them.
⁵ Indonesia also ranks #1 on the CAF WGI list of most generous countries, due to broad population engagement.
⁶ This is a plausible first estimate, as our GivingPulse 2025 data found that only 23% of US households donated more than 1% of their income, and most giving comes from a fraction of households.
What global trends emerge from the world map? To explore this question, we benchmarked our estimates against the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy's Global Philanthropy Environment Index, which measures how freely organizations can operate in each country. Higher giving rates tend to show up in countries with stronger civic enabling environments, where organizations can operate freely and philanthropy is legally supported.⁷
Where giving rates are lower, this could reflect a variety of influences, such as lasting effects of government policies that historically restricted independent civil society, or other factors that make it difficult for people to donate, organize, or give formally⁸. Research shows these structural constraints can persist for decades after the policies themselves have changed⁹, shaping not just how much people give but how giving gets measured and recorded.
Notably, all five of the most generous countries by our estimate of within-country generosity are in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, regions whose generosity is likely undercounted by methods built around Western giving norms¹⁰. As we refine our estimates each year, we hope to better account the generosity from populations living in places where data is scarce.
⁷ Global Philanthropy Environment Index (GPEI), Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
⁸ ICNL (2019). Philanthropy in Russian Society Today& ICNL (2023). China Philanthropy Law Report.
⁹ Paturyan, Y. & Gevorgyan, V. (2021). Still Post-Communist? Testing Howard's Predictions. Springer.
¹⁰ CAF World Giving Index (2024).
Remittance Inflows: Top 5 Countries
Remittances are the single largest source of global aid, totaling $690 billion to low- and middle-income countries¹¹, and directly involving about one in nine people worldwide. The remittance economy affects more people than the populations of the US and EU combined, and each family receiving money from abroad likely affects many others in their community¹² who are not officially counted. The UN estimates that this direct aid addresses at least seven of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and totals more than $100 billion annually in direct, long-term community investment that reduces poverty. About 75% of remittances remain with recipient families, paying for immediate needs like food, medicine, school, and utilities. About 50% of global remittances flow to rural areas¹³. In more than 60 countries, remittances account for 3% or more of the gross domestic product, according to the World Bank—much more influential than official development assistance.
Compared against what we observed last year, the same five countries lead the world in remittance inflows. Pakistan led in growth among these, growing 22% in 2024 and 27% in 2025. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Great Britain, and the US are the top countries sending money to Pakistan.
Remittance inflows: Top 5 countries
This year's findings are less a story of unexpected resilience than of previously under-measured resilience. As geopolitical contexts shift the ways communities organize, support one another, and mobilize resources become increasingly central to the future of civil society. The question is no longer simply how we sustain communities and people. It is how we understand, strengthen, and invest in the generosity that has always existed alongside them.
— Asha Curran, CEO GivingTuesday
— Asha Curran, CEO, GivingTuesday
Giving and Civic Intent Trends in 2025
Brazil, Mexico, US, Canada, Great Britain, Kenya, India
Key Takeaways
Giving in any form rose year over year across the seven surveyed countries. The US and Mexico recorded the largest increases in overall giving participation, while Kenya, India, and Brazil each saw slight declines. Kenya and India remain the two highest-participation countries in the sample, with near universal participation.
Growth was uneven across giving types, with volunteering and advocacy increasing more than monetary and item-based giving. Volunteering and advocacy grew slightly faster than the overall participation rate.
Civic Intent scores and giving participation show a consistent relationship across countries. Kenya and India, the two highest-participation countries for giving, also have the largest shares of respondents scoring in the top tiers of Civic Intent. The remaining five countries show a comparatively flatter distribution on both measures.
Willingness to give across ideological lines is high in every country surveyed, with Great Britain consistently the lowest. In all seven countries, a majority of respondents fall into the less polarized segment of the scale. Kenya and India report the highest shares in this segment.
Stability in social fabric indicators masks divergent country-level trends. At the country level, the United States recorded gains across all five Civic Intent indicators, and Mexico showed similar positive movement. Great Britain declined on community belonging and depolarizing attitudes, and Brazil recorded declines across generosity, trust, and belonging measures.
In our seven-country Global Omnibus survey, we continue to ask questions about the extent to which people’s underlying participation in (and motivations about) generosity are holding.
Compared with what we saw in 2024, we continue to see that, regardless of economic pressure, political climate, or cultural context, the overwhelming majority of people find some way to give.
In this section, we look at a few key angles of this question:
Whether generosity is changing: Overall participation is up, but the more interesting story is underneath the topline number. Individual modes of giving (money, items, time, advocacy) are each growing faster than the aggregate, suggesting that people who already give are finding more ways to do it.
How generosity relates to civic belief: Using our Civic Intent framework, we examine how people's sense of obligation to the common good relates to their willingness to help others they disagree with. We find that the countries with the strongest civic commitment are also the most willing to give across ideological lines.
Whether the social fabric is fraying: By tracking five indicators (community belonging, generosity, trust in people, trust in nonprofits, and depolarizing attitudes), we get a more nuanced understanding of civic health in the countries we’ve surveyed.
GIVING AND CIVIC INTENT TRENDS
Across the seven countries we regularly survey (US, Great Britain, India, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada), overall giving rates were up slightly in 2025. The overall figure modestly understates the fact that each specific form of giving grew a little more than the total, which indicates that people already participating may be participating in more ways than before.
Country-level trends varied considerably and are examined in detail in the country profiles in Part 3, to be released in released over the coming months. The tables in this section provide the reference data and subsequent profiles interpret what those shifts mean in context.
Giving Rates Increased Slightly, Year-over-Year
| Giving type | 2024 | 2025 | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Any form of giving n=6,024 | 83.3% | 84.6% | +1.3 |
| Gave money n=4,610 | 62.9% | 64.1% | +1.2 |
| Gave items n=5,288 | 73.6% | 74.0% | +0.4 |
| Volunteered time n=3,995 | 54.0% | 55.8% | +1.8 |
| Advocacy n=3,984 | 54.3% | 55.5% | +1.2 |
Giving is near universal: at least four out of five people gave in some form last year, from a low of 80% in Brazil to 99% in Kenya, nearly everybody helps. Between two-thirds and 98% of people gave in two or more forms last year (any combination of money, items, volunteering, or advocacy). People were more likely to have given in all four modes everywhere that we surveyed, than in only one.
The US¹⁴ and Mexico saw the largest increases in participation, while Brazil, India, and Kenya saw slight decreases in overall generosity, measured as a percent of the population engaged. These shifts are best understood in context, as participation in giving is near universal in Kenya and remains exceptionally high in India and Mexico.
¹⁴ In the US, we saw a surprising 9% increase in the percent volunteering, donating items, or advocating in 2025. This is much larger than our observed GivingPulse yearly shifts, based on weekly reporting about past-week activity (a 1.6% increase, similar to the global average YOY change). People in the US appeared to recall giving more in 2025, up 5.3%, compared to 2024. This variance in estimates illustrates a known effect that people are more likely to recall giving money (or doing anything) when asked about the past year, compared to the past week. However, we didn't expect YOY changes to be affected as much (the past recall error should affect both 2025 and 2024 samples). Based on both sources, we conclude that US generosity was up 2–5% in 2025, and largely driven by items, advocacy, and volunteering more than money.
Civic Intent and Willingness to Give Across Ideological Boundaries
Originally developed in 2024, Civic Intent is a composite metric that captures how individuals express their commitment to the common good through recent acts of generosity, community-mindedness, and willingness to help others that they may disagree with. To examine civic trends within each country, we divided people into segments based on where they fell on a 100-point scale, with 80–100 being those who held the most prosocial attitudes and participated in the greatest variety of ways. Kenya and India stand out sharply: the vast majority of respondents in both countries score in the top two tiers (60–100), with very few falling below 40. The other five countries present a flatter picture, with larger shares of their populations in the middle ranges (20–80)¹⁵.
This pattern is consistent with what we see in generosity behavior more broadly: the countries where nearly everyone gives are also the countries where a strong sense of obligation to the common good is most widely held.
We continue to ask a variety of questions about people’s willingness to act generously for the benefit of people with different ideologies or lifestyles. When framed in the context of generous action, we see evidence that most people have an inclusive mindset in who they are willing to help. In every country we survey, the majority of people fall in the less polarized portion of the scale, with Kenya and India having the largest shares of people willing to help across various boundaries. On this aspect of prosociality, Great Britain lags behind other countries.
¹⁵ In our previous state of generosity report we used country average scores instead of quintiles because that allowed us to compare with similar IPSOS measures, but we switched to this analysis because it provides a level of detail and clustering that reflects the kinds of shifts that we could reasonably observe changing from one year to the next, as a result of transformative events.
Understanding the Social Fabric
Civic Intent tracks participants’ sense of obligation to others. To understand whether that sense of obligation is strengthening or eroding, we track five underlying indicators of social fabric: community belonging, generosity in any form, trust in people, trust in nonprofits, and depolarizing attitudes.
Viewed in aggregate, 2025 looks a lot like 2024. But that headline number hides real movement underneath. The United States posted gains across all five indicators, the most consistent positive shift of any country in the study. Mexico moved in a similarly positive direction. Great Britain moved the other way, with falling community belonging and depolarizing attitudes suggesting rising social strain. Canada is the only country where trust in nonprofit declined.
| Metric | Brazil | Canada | India | Kenya | Mexico | The US | Great Britain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community belonging | -0.3 | +1.1 | 0.0 | -1.3 | -0.9 | +4.4 | -1.6 |
| Generosity any form | -2.7 | +2.3 | -1.3 | -0.7 | +4.3 | +5.3 | +1.1 |
| Trust people | -1.9 | +1.3 | -1.3 | -0.4 | +1.7 | +2.0 | -0.3 |
| Trust nonprofits | +0.1 | -1.8 | 0.0 | +2.1 | +2.6 | +1.3 | +0.1 |
| Depolarizing attitudes | +1.1 | +1.0 | -1.1 | 0.0 | +3.6 | +3.8 | -2.5 |
Brazil continued a multi-year softening across generosity, trust, and belonging. India and Kenya were largely stable, with only small shifts in either direction across the five indicators. The lesson: a flat global average can conceal meaningfully different stories happening inside individual countries.
Country-specific trends will be examined in depth in a forthcoming series of country reports to be released over the next month.
Country by Country Snapshots
Rolling out in the coming months
HOW INDIVIDUALS DRIVE GIVING AROUND THE WORLD
About the Country Snapshots
In addition to the survey described above, these country snapshots draw on the Charities Aid Foundation World Giving Index (CAF WGI), and the Global Flourishing Survey (GFS, Wave 2, 2024). While all three capture generosity trends across multiple countries, they reflect different measures of the same acts of generosity.
How to read each snapshot
Each country's snapshot follows the same five part structure and draws on a survey of about 1,000 adults in each of seven countries: Brazil, Canada, India, Kenya, Mexico, Great Britain and the United States. The first part on Participation Trends 2022-2025 presents generosity trends from the GO surveys for 2022 to 2025, covering four types of giving (money, items, volunteering and advocacy). The second part, Where and How Generosity Is Allocated, shows who receives support and how people give. The third part, Civic Intent and Generosity, reports on civic intent, our measure of a person's broader intentions and actions toward helping others and improving society. It combines recent actions to help others, the motivations behind helping, and a general trust in people.
The fourth part, Civic Values, reports on broader attitudes we track about success, the economic system, government and openness to the world. Civic values relate to civic intent, but they are a distinct concept: civic intent specifically combines the intention to help with having helped recently, and civic values do not. The fifth part, Complementary Data, adds context from other sources, such as the Global Flourishing Survey, the CAF World Giving Index and the World Happiness Report.
Brazil
Generosity Participation Trends 2022–2025
Generosity in Brazil has declined slightly since 2022. Giving in any form fell from 80% to 77% last year. In 2023, there was a modest increase in monetary donation and volunteering, with a small decline in item donation. Between 2024 and 2025, the share of people who give money (up 2.2 points) and time (up 3.7 points) rose, while giving items fell (down 2.4 points), and giving in any form declined overall. Giving remains lower than the level recorded in 2022, a peak that likely reflects the post-Covid recovery period, during which generosity rates rose globally before declining again.
Younger Brazilian respondents are notably more likely to give than older Brazilians. Adults under 35 are 14 percentage points more likely to give money than those aged 50 to 74, compared with a gap of about 10 points in both Canada and India (GO 2025).
Where and How Generosity is Allocated
The biggest story in Brazil is a shift in where giving goes. The share of people giving to formal nonprofit organizations fell sharply in 2025, from 70% to 62%, the largest single-category decline of any country we track. Giving to informal groups rose slightly and giving to individuals held steady, so Brazilians now spread their giving more evenly across the three types of recipient. Just over half of givers still support all three, as in 2023 and 2024.
The shift away from formal channels is also visible in how money is given. Online giving to charity websites, already one of the lower modes in Brazil, fell further in 2025 across all three age groups. At the same time, in-person giving rose by 12 percentage points among adults under 35 (GO 2025). This is the reverse of the trend seen in most other countries, where younger adults are moving toward digital giving.
Civic Intent and Generosity in Brazil
Brazilian civic intent is distinctive in a few ways. First, the share of people who say they only care about helping their own community is relatively high, and the willingness to help those one disagrees with is relatively low, suggesting that solidarity within communities is strong.
30–36% of Brazilians across age groups say they only care about the needs of their own community compared to 24–27% in Great Britain and 29–37% in the US. Willingness to help those with whom one disagrees sits at 76–82% in Brazil depending on age group, lower than Mexico but broadly in line with the US. (GO 2025).
Civic Values in Brazil
On civic values, Brazil appears pessimistic on some measures. Few Brazilian respondents believe that individual effort leads to success: only 35% of adults under 35 agree that everyone has the power to succeed, the lowest among the countries surveyed Unusually, it is older Brazilians who are slightly more optimistic (48-53%) on this than younger ones, the reverse of the pattern seen in most other countries.
This skepticism about individual agency sits alongside a widespread belief that the system is tilted: a majority in every age group say it favors the powerful, and the share of older adults who see the government as wasteful has risen sharply. Together, these readings suggest limited faith in either individual effort or institutional fairness as paths to progress. Brazilians are also only moderately open to people from around the world (about half, far below Kenya) (GO 2025).
Complementary Data
The Global Flourishing Survey provides supplemental context. Brazilian donors and volunteers are more strongly associated with religious practice than with civic identity or institutional belonging, which suggests that faith communities are a factor in sustained giving. This may partially explain why withdrawal from formal nonprofits has not been matched by an equivalent withdrawal from giving to individuals and informal channels.
Canada
Generosity Participation Trends 2022–2025
Canadian giving held broadly steady in 2025. The main trend across the four-year period is a gradual increase in giving items; other forms showed modest gains or held stable.
Giving in any form ticked up slightly, and giving items remained the most common form of participation in every age group. Canada’s picture is one of stability.
Where and How Generosity is Allocated
Registered charities remained the most common destination for Canadian donors, supported by about seven in ten in 2025, up slightly from 2024. The US showed a similar, slightly larger increase, while Great Britain was largely unchanged.
Across giving channels, donations through mobile apps have declined in each of the past three years. The biggest age-related shift is among Canadians under 35, who increasingly give directly to individuals rather than through charity websites: direct giving in this group rose by 11 percentage points in 2025. Giving through online intermediaries declined modestly among adults under 50 (GO 2025).
Civic Intent and Generosity in Canada
Canadian civic intent closely resembles that of the US, with a strong, broadly shared belief that everyone has a responsibility to help those in need, held about as firmly by the youngest adults as by the oldest. Guilt as a motivation follows a different pattern: rather than declining steadily with age, as in Great Britain and the US, it peaks among 35 to 49 year olds before falling among those 50 to 74.
Community belonging rises steadily with age, as in Mexico and Brazil, while it stays flat in the US and declines in Great Britain. Interestingly, belonging does not correlate with generalized trust across all ages. Canadians’ trust in other people is lowest among midlife populations (aged 35 to 49) before recovering among those aged 50 to 74 (GO 2025).
Civic Values in Canada
Canadians show a modest generational divide across most civic values, with government skepticism the clear exception. Views on openness to people from around the world remain consistent across age groups, while skepticism toward government increases steadily with age.
Support for openness to people from around the world is just under half in every age group, slightly below the US and far below Kenya. Skepticism toward government rises steadily with age, from under four in ten under-35s to nearly six in ten over-50s, an age gap similar to those in Great Britain and the US (GO 2025).
Complementary Data
The World Happiness Report (2024) highlights a notable youth well-being gap in Canada relative to other high-income countries. Younger Canadians report lower subjective well-being than older adults, which is a reversal of the historic pattern. This is worth noting alongside the GO data showing active giving and civic engagement among younger Canadians, suggesting that generosity and personal well-being may not be moving in the same direction for this group.
India
Generosity Participation Trends 2022–2025
India's giving rates remain among the highest in the world, but have shown some signs of broad, gradual decline since 2023, with small declines in rates of giving money and items and participation in volunteering. Younger Indians are more likely to give than older Indians, though even older individuals participate at high rates relative to the other countries we survey. These rates describe India’s online population, surveyed in English and in a country where internet access is 56%, the second lowest of seven countries surveyed ( World Bank,2024).
Nine in ten Indians gave in some form in both 2024 and 2025. Volunteering dipped slightly but remains far more common than in Great Britain or the US. Younger Indians are the most likely to give money, though the gap with older adults is narrower than in Brazil. Interestingly, adults aged 50 to 74 stay active across most forms of giving, in a way older adults in most other countries do not (GO 2025).
Where and How Generosity is Allocated
Indians who have spread their support widely: in 2025, roughly eight in ten or more supported formal charities, informal groups and individuals alike. Three in four support all three types of recipient, a share second only to Kenya and well above the US, Mexico, Brazil and Great Britain, where roughly half do (GO 2025).
Younger Indians are more likely to give online, while older adults are more likely to give in person or directly to individuals. Notably, giving through charity websites peaks among 35 to 49 year olds, the same group least likely to give directly to a person in need. Direct giving is most common among the oldest givers (GO 2025).
Civic Intent and Generosity in India
Indian respondents are more likely than respondents in other countries we survey to report giving as a result of input from family or community, which suggests that social factors figure prominently in giving decisions. Community belonging and a sense of shared responsibility are high across all age groups.
Between 82% and 86% of Indians say their decisions to help included input from family or community, the highest on that measure across all countries and ahead of Kenya (74% to 75%), the next closest (GO 2025). This holds consistently across all three age groups, indicating that, in India, social influence on giving is structural rather than a feature of any particular cohort. Guilt is also a stronger motivator than in Great Britain or the US, though it follows a similar age pattern (GO 2025).
Civic Values in India
Civic values here refer to general attitudes about success, the economic system, government and openness to others, reported alongside the given data above.
On these measures, India presents a generally optimistic picture. Belief that people have the power to succeed is high and, unusually, increases with age. Openness to people from all over the world is broadly supported across age groups. Views of government as wasteful are less common in India than in most of the other countries surveyed. Indians also recognize structural inequity, with the majority believing the system somewhat favors the powerful.
India’s age pattern on individual agency is among the most distinctive in the dataset: belief that everyone has the power to succeed rises with age, from about seven in ten under-35s to more than eight in ten over-50s. Brazil and the US show a similar, if weaker, upward pattern. Among adults aged 50 to 74, 37% see the government as wasteful, lowest share of any country surveyed for that age group (GO 2025).
Complementary Data
The Global Flourishing Survey surfaces a tension: India's high giving rates coexist with lower self-reported happiness, more loneliness, and worse mental health than most countries in the survey. Non-givers in India are most distinctively associated with having no close person in their lives, suggesting that giving and social connection are tightly linked.
The GFS places India well below the 23-country average on happiness and mental health, among the weakest well-being profiles in the study, despite India’s very high giving participation. While volunteers in India do report better well-being than non-volunteers, gaps between these two measures are smaller than those seen in Great Britain or the US (GFS).
Great Britain
Generosity Participation Trends 2022–2025
British giving has remained largely stable: about four in five Britons gave in some form in both 2024 and 2025, and volunteering was essentially unchanged.
Looking at a longer timeframe, the CAF World Giving Index 2024 presents a more challenging picture: the UK (Great Britain and Northern Ireland combined) ranked 22nd globally with a 49% score, down sharply from 57% and 6th place back in 2014. While the two datasets measure different aspects of generosity and use slightly different geographic definitions, together they suggest a country that experienced a significant decline over the past decade but has recently stabilized rather than clearly recovered.
Where and How Generosity is Allocated
Among those who give in Great Britain, formal charities remain the dominant recipient, with 75% of givers supporting them, ahead of the US, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. This pattern has remained stable over the past two years. In contrast, direct giving to individuals is less common, with only 51% of givers reporting this approach, the lowest range among countries surveyed. Compared with countries such as Kenya and India, where direct personal giving is more common, British giving remains strongly oriented toward formal institutions
Civic values in Great Britain
British respondents show a generally cautious view of civic institutions and national identity, with some differences emerging across generations. Across all age groups, at least half believe government is wasteful, although this view becomes more common among older adults. A majority in every age group also believes the system unfairly favors the powerful. At the same time, openness to people from around the world as part of national identity is held by about half of adults under 50 and by four in ten of those aged 50 to 74.
Belief that people have the power to succeed declines with age, from just over half of adults under 35 (55%) to under half of those aged 50 to 74 (45%), one of the few measures where younger Britons are more optimistic than their elders. Perceptions of government waste show the strongest age divide, rising from half of adults under 35 to more than two in three of those aged 50 to 74 (69%). The share who say the system unfairly favors the powerful is 60% among adults under 35 and 67% in both older groups. Views on openness as part of national identity move the other way; younger adults are more likely to hold them (52% of adults under 35, against 40% of those aged 50 to 74), but support stays at or below about half in every age group, slightly lower than in the US among adults under 50, well below it among those aged 50 to 74, and far lower than in Kenya (GO 2025).
Complementary Data
Global Flourishing Survey data adds another dimension to Britain’s giving profile. British respondents report lower levels of happiness, mental health, and physical health than many countries with lower material security. Yet among the relatively small share who volunteer, the relationship with well-being appears stronger than in any other country covered by the GFS.
Fewer than four in ten Britons volunteer, among the lowest rates in the survey and far below Kenya and the US. But British volunteers show a larger well-being advantage over non-volunteers than in any other GFS country. Religion may be one factor: British volunteers are markedly more likely than non-volunteers to report a strong religious connection and to discuss their beliefs with others. The difference does not appear to be driven by guilt or judgment, suggesting that volunteering in Britain may be linked more to personal connection and belonging than to obligation (GFS).
Civic Intent and Generosity in Great Britain
Great Britain shows an unusual generational pattern in Civic Intent. Younger adults report the strongest sense of universal responsibility to help others, and this declines steadily with age. Willingness to help people one disagrees with is high among adults under 50 (roughly three in four) but drops below six in ten among those aged 50 to 74, making older Britons the least likely group to support people with different views.
Younger adults also report more emotional and financial pressure around giving. Younger Britons are far more likely than older Britons to say guilt over their good fortune influences their giving, and that financial strain affects it (Figure XX). The age gaps, about 20 points on each measure, are among the widest in the dataset (GO 2025). The GFS finds that 18 to 24 year olds have the lowest flourishing scores of any age group in its study, which sits alongside this pattern.
Kenya
Generosity Participation Trends 2022–2025
Kenya's generosity rates are the highest in the dataset by a wide margin, and have been remarkably stable since 2022. Across all four years, Kenya's giving rates have remained essentially near-universal. These rates describe Kenya's online population, surveyed in English in a country where internet access is 35%, the lowest of the seven countries surveyed. Given these realities, we acknowledge that these figures are best thought of as representative of the population with access to the internet, which tends to be in more urban centers.
The percentage of people who “Gave in all its forms” was essentially unchanged from the previous year. For reference, the CAF World Giving Index 2024 placed Kenya second globally behind only Indonesia, consistent with the GO picture (CAF WGI 2024). The small dip in 2025 is likely as a result of a fall in advocacy-related activity following the 2024 protest cycle, while core giving forms held essentially flat, potentially indicating that Kenya's civic activism is recalibrating after an unusually high baseline (GO 2025).
Where and How Generosity is Allocated
Among those who give in Kenya (which is nearly everyone) giving is allocated broadly across all three recipient types. The overwhelming majority of donors give to formal organizations, to informal groups, to individuals. It is notable that older adults give across a wider range of payment modes, including digital and mobile payment, more so than younger adults, which is an inversion of the typical pattern seen in other countries.
Kenya respondents allocate generosity evenly across formal organizations, informal groups, and individuals. In 2025, more than nine in ten respondents supported formal organizations, informal groups and individuals alike. Where Great Britain concentrates giving in formal charities, Kenyans give broadly to all three. Kenya also reverses the usual age pattern in digital giving: about three in four Kenyans aged 35 and over give through mobile or app-based channels, compared with just over half of under-35s. In the US, Brazil and India, digital giving skews younger (GO 2025).
Complementary Data
The Global Flourishing Survey adds a nuance to Kenya's strong giving picture: Kenyan respondents score below the GFS average on several subjective wellbeing measures, including feeling at peace and having balance in life. Generosity here appears rooted in social norms and community cohesion rather than individual flourishing. Non-helpers in Kenya are most distinctively associated with never forgiving others, suggesting that the social and relational dimensions of giving are especially salient in this context.
The GFS shows a split wellbeing profile in Kenya: respondents score well below the 23-country average on life satisfaction and wellbeing today, yet above average on mental and physical health. The average gap between volunteers and non-volunteers across GFS questions is the smallest of the six GFS countries we survey, less than half that seen in Great Britain or the US. One interpretation is that where giving is a social norm rather than a personal choice, it carries less personal distinction (GFS).
Civic Values in Kenya
Kenya shows a notably optimistic civic values profile. Belief that people have the power to succeed is very high across all age groups. Openness to people from elsewhere is the highest of any country in the dataset. At the same time, a majority believe the system somewhat favors the powerful, and there is broad support for the idea that compromise is how progress gets made. Civic skepticism and civic optimism coexist in Kenya in a way that is unusual among the countries we survey.
Belief that people have the power to succeed is high (above eight in ten) and, unlike in Brazil or the US, barely varies by age. Notably, the percentage of people concerned about government waste rises steeply from about a third of under-35s to nearly six in ten of the oldest group. Kenyans are also the most open to people from around the world of any country in the dataset. Kenya and India stand out for combining the highest belief in individual agency, at 69% or more in every age group, with a majority who see the system as unfairly favoring the powerful (GO 2025).
Civic Intent and Generosity in Kenya
In our surveys, Kenyans hold a broad and deeply felt sense of responsibility to help others, near-universal across all age groups. Financial strain around giving is the lowest of any country surveyed, though reported guilt sits mid range. Giving decisions often involve input from family or others, at 74 to 75% across age groups, second only to India. Trust in the community is exceptionally high, as is the belief that giving makes the community better.
Kenyans are the least likely of any country surveyed to say giving strains their finances (roughly one in four, compared with around half or more of Americans and many Britons). Where younger Americans and Britons describe giving as a source of stress, Kenyans of all ages treat it as a low-friction part of daily life. Community belonging reinforces this: nearly all Kenyans feel they truly belong in their community and that they are helping make it better, the highest levels of any country surveyed (GO 2025).
Mexico
Generosity Participation Trends 2022–2025
Mexico's overall giving participation rates increased in 2025, with continuing steady growth in item-giving over time. Volunteering increased from 44% to 51% in 2025, a gain of 7 percentage points, and advocacy rose by 3 points, while giving money was essentially unchanged (up to 0.4 points). Item giving is the only subcategory to show a consistent upward trend across the multi-year period. Mexico also scores 12–18 points above the 23-country average on measures of happiness, mental health, and physical health in the GFS, making it one of the highest-performing countries on both giving participation and well-being indicators (GO 2025, GFS).
Where and How Generosity is Allocated
In 2025, more than four in five Mexican respondents reported at least one act of generosity, up from 2024. Support grew across all three types of recipient entities that we track: individuals remain the most common, followed by formal charities and informal groups. These overlap rather than compete: most respondents supported all three, and that share also rose (55%, up from 51%)
A separate question, asked only of the 48% who gave money, covers how that money was given. Giving directly to a person in need remains the most common generous act as it has been every year since 2022, but rates have declined each year, from 54% in 2022 to 44% in 2025.
Direct giving skews older: nearly two in three donors aged 50 to 74 gave directly to a person in need, compared with around four in ten younger donors. Younger Mexicans are more likely to use digital channels such as charity websites and online intermediaries (platforms like GlobalGiving that raise funds for nonprofits). India shows a similar generational divide, though it is less pronounced than in Mexico (GO 2025)
Civic Intent and Generosity in Mexico
Generosity values are relatively balanced across age groups in Mexico, with less intergenerational disparity than in most other countries. Willingness to help those one disagrees with is very high and rises with age. Community belonging strengthens with age. Younger Mexicans are more likely to say that family and community input shapes their giving decisions. Trust in nonprofits, and willingness to help others with different views, both improved in 2025.
Willingness to help those one disagrees with runs from 77% among adults under 35 to 88% among those aged 50 to 74. The intergenerational gap on most Civic Intent measures in Mexico is under 15 percentage points. Family and community also play a strong role in shaping helping behavior: between 59% and 72% of Mexicans across age groups say their own decisions to help were influenced by family or community input, with the highest share among the youngest group (GO 2025).
Complementary Data
The Global Flourishing Survey shows Mexico scoring above average on most well-being measures. Non-givers in Mexico are far more likely to have no close person in their lives, reinforcing that giving and community belonging are tightly intertwined in Mexico's giving culture.
The GFS also finds Mexicans the most willing of any country in the study to give up short-term happiness for longer-term gain.
Civic Values in Mexico
Civic values here refer to general attitudes about success, the economic system, government and openness to others, reported alongside the giving data above.
Mexicans show broad institutional skepticism across age groups, similar to what we see in Great Britain. Government is seen as wasteful by 57% of adults under 35 and 69% of those aged 50 to 74, and a majority in every age group (58% to 67%) says the system unfairly favors the powerful, with older adults more likely to agree on both. Belief that people have the power to succeed rises with age, from 52% of adults under 35 to 69% of those aged 50 to 74, and support for openness to people from around the world follows the same pattern, from 45% to 61%. Belief in compromise is more mixed, reaching just over half among adults aged 35 and older (GO 2025).
United States
Generosity Participation Trends 2022–2025
The United States experienced a rebound in giving in 2025 after several years of decline across most forms of generosity. Participation increased across money, items, and volunteering, with the share of Americans engaging in all three forms of giving making one of the largest year-over-year gains observed in the dataset.
In 2025, about four in five Americans said they gave in some form over the past year, up 5 points from 2024. Volunteering and giving items both rose sharply, with volunteering reaching half of adults. The CAF World Giving Index 2024 ranks the US sixth globally, below the top positions it held in earlier editions. Together, these findings suggest that while 2025 marked a strong recovery, giving has not yet returned to previous highs (GO 2025; CAF World Giving Index 2024).
Where and How Generosity is Allocated
In 2025, more than four in five Mexican respondents reported at least one act of generosity, up from 2024. Support grew across all three types of recipient entities that we track: individuals remain the most common, followed by formal charities and informal groups. These overlap rather than compete: most respondents supported all three, and that share also rose (55%, up from 51%)
A separate question, asked only of the 48% who gave money, covers how that money was given. Giving directly to a person in need remains the most common generous act as it has been every year since 2022, but rates have declined each year, from 54% in 2022 to 44% in 2025.
Direct giving skews older: nearly two in three donors aged 50 to 74 gave directly to a person in need, compared with around four in ten younger donors. Younger Mexicans are more likely to use digital channels such as charity websites and online intermediaries (platforms like GlobalGiving that raise funds for nonprofits). India shows a similar generational divide, though it is less pronounced than in Mexico (GO 2025)
Civic Intent and Generosity in Mexico
Generosity values are relatively balanced across age groups in Mexico, with less intergenerational disparity than in most other countries. Willingness to help those one disagrees with is very high and rises with age. Community belonging strengthens with age. Younger Mexicans are more likely to say that family and community input shapes their giving decisions. Trust in nonprofits, and willingness to help others with different views, both improved in 2025.
Willingness to help those one disagrees with runs from 77% among adults under 35 to 88% among those aged 50 to 74. The intergenerational gap on most Civic Intent measures in Mexico is under 15 percentage points. Family and community also play a strong role in shaping helping behavior: between 59% and 72% of Mexicans across age groups say their own decisions to help were influenced by family or community input, with the highest share among the youngest group (GO 2025).
Complementary Data
The Global Flourishing Survey shows Mexico scoring above average on most well-being measures. Non-givers in Mexico are far more likely to have no close person in their lives, reinforcing that giving and community belonging are tightly intertwined in Mexico's giving culture.
The GFS also finds Mexicans the most willing of any country in the study to give up short-term happiness for longer-term gain.
Civic Values in Mexico
Civic values here refer to general attitudes about success, the economic system, government and openness to others, reported alongside the giving data above.
Mexicans show broad institutional skepticism across age groups, similar to what we see in Great Britain. Government is seen as wasteful by 57% of adults under 35 and 69% of those aged 50 to 74, and a majority in every age group (58% to 67%) says the system unfairly favors the powerful, with older adults more likely to agree on both. Belief that people have the power to succeed rises with age, from 52% of adults under 35 to 69% of those aged 50 to 74, and support for openness to people from around the world follows the same pattern, from 45% to 61%. Belief in compromise is more mixed, reaching just over half among adults aged 35 and older (GO 2025).
