News that giving in the UK dropped an unprecedented 20% (£2.3bn) in real terms last year to £9.3bn has sparked a ‘Back Britain’s Charities’ campaign aimed at boosting giving, and has also prompted a backlash from some quarters who are challenging the data.

This year’s UK Giving survey, carried out by ONS for NCVO and CAF, paints a bleak picture of giving with most indicators showing a fall – one of the few positives is that the value of giving by direct debit is up to 31% from 25% last year.

However,  this year's BBC Children in Need total, reported to be the highest ever at more than £26.7m, provides a welcome note of optimism among the negative findings of the research that shows:

• In real terms, the estimated total amount in 2011/12 is the smallest it has been since the survey began in 2004/05.
• The proportion of people donating to charitable causes in a typical month has decreased over the last year, from 58% to 55%.
• The typical amount given per donor per month in 2011/12 decreased to £10 (the median value), having been £11 in 2010/11and £12 in 2009/10.
• For the first time since the survey began, the proportion of donors using Gift Aid has dropped to 39% in 2011/12 from 42% in 2010/11, with the decrease concentrated among those making smaller donations (less than £25).

The news comes at a time when many charities are facing crisis, with government funding down and demand for services and running costs up. The report says that some charities are having to close front-line services, make redundancies and close all together. It argues that the drop in donations is a concern for everyone in our society, not just charities.

John Low, Chief Executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, said: “The drop in giving shown by our survey is deeply worrying for those charities which rely on donations to provide vital frontline services. Combined with public spending cuts this represents a potentially severe blow for many charities.

“We hope the fall in giving shown in our survey is a temporary decline and not the start of a damaging trend. If donations continue to fall, many charities will face profound difficulties carrying on their work and the people and communities they serve will suffer.”

The survey that takes seasonal snapshots in June, October, and February, asking 3000 people aged over 16 if they have given in the previous month, showed a particularly disappointing number of people responded positively in February, despite the fact that, in the history of the survey, that month has traditionally showed higher levels of giving than the other two data points.

Richard Harrison, CAF’s Research Director, said: “The data has been cleaned and dampened for outlier figures, and stands up to triangulation. What we do know is that consumer confidence was particularly low in February, with people coming out of Christmas period and panicking about the double dip recession and the global economic situation and there was a general climate of concern. But even excluding February's data, the figures for giving remain low.”

He says it is hard to know if the drop in giving is a trend or a blip, and whether there is a possibility that next year we may see a ‘Jubilee’ or ‘Olympic’ effect increasing giving, but said “we are in uncharted waters and that’s why it is appropriate that we are making this amount of noise about our findings at this time”.

Under the ‘Back Britain’s Charities’ banner which gained the support of almost 900 individuals and organisations in 24 hours, and is well in excess of 1,0 CAF and NCVO are calling for:

• People to support charities through regular giving, regardless of how much time or money they can give.
• The Government to modernise and promote Gift Aid and payroll giving so donations go further.
• The Government to ensure that public bodies do not cut funding for charities disproportionately when making spending reductions.
• Business to support charities either through donations, or through practical means.
• Charities to work together with the Government to modernise and improve fundraising and enhance their impact, so that every pound given goes further towards helping beneficiaries.

The Cabinet Office has said it is interested in talking to CAF and NCVO further about the research.

However, others bodies are challenging the figures, suggesting the huge shift is due to statistical factors.

Professor Cathy Pharoah of CGAP, says: “I think we have to be cautious about a survey that shows such a huge shift. This survey is a blunt tool for representing the whole population with its relatively small sample size and is vulnerable to random variation. It fails to capture the giving of those earning over a certain amount or details of donations over a certain level and that could account for billions of pounds in donations.  There is nothing in HMRC data or reports from other charities that support these findings. In fact, many charities say giving to them has flat-lined or increased. I think it would help if we were allowed to see the data.”

Responding to the research Peter Lewis, Chief Executive of the Institute of Fundraising (IoF), said: “This is an interesting new set of data and we need to look at it more carefully and do some analysis to see what is behind the reported decline in giving. As far as we are aware it doesn’t reflect the experience of our members, with charities who have spoken to us saying that they have had an increase or giving has been at worst, flat.”

NCVO’s Head of Policy, Research, and Foresight Karl Wilding in his blog Why I think we are right, but hope we are wrong aims to answer some of the criticisms saying that the research was properly done, using face to face interviews, the methodology has not changed over its eight year history, the economic climate was poor in 2011/12 and that other surveys last year showed people had indicated they intended to give less.

“It’s one of the truisms of social research that there are no ‘new’ findings. And that if you do find something new, or surprising, the answer is almost certainly that it’s wrong,” adding that having reached for ‘the fine-tooth comb’ in order to be sure, he is confident they are right in what they are reporting.

Those wanting to support the Back Britain’s Charities Campaign can sign up here.

Hannah Terrey, of CAF, says: “These are very early days for the campaign and we don’t see it as short term one. The whole issue clearly resonates with the sector as we can see from the amount of support. We want to think about what we can do next. It is a good time for the sector to use this as a platform to work together whether it’s lobbying on policy around Gift Aid or raising awareness of issues or what messages we should be communicating. We want to hear ideas on what actions we should take.”

The UK Giving report is available to download here: https://www.cafonline.org/publications/2012-publications/uk-giving-2012....