Australia and New Zealand rank equal first as the most giving nations in the world according to a recent report (World Giving Index 2010) issued by the international not for profit Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). The report indicates that 57% of the population in Australia and New Zealand give to charity, closely followed by Canada and Ireland on 56%, and Switzerland and the USA on 55%.

The report is particularly revealing because it is not simply based on monetary giving. Rather, it uses an average of scores across three categories: giving money, giving time and helping a stranger, to arrive at a percentage of the population who have given in at least one of these three ways in a given month. (For full details of the report, including the methodology used, click on this link www.cafonline.org/Default.aspx?page=19428 and click on the download button).

CAF highlights these findings:

• When giving is assessed across the three categories it appears that although half of the 20 most charitable countries are the most wealthy countries, around half are certainly not (such as Guinea, Guyana and Turkmenistan).
• The main way we give is by helping strangers: according to the responses 45% of the world’s population had helped a stranger in the past month.
• Giving and levels of happiness are closely linked (more so than giving and national GDP) suggesting that we give when we are happy, not simply because we are well off.
• The older we are the more likely we are to give.

CAF Australia Chief Executive Don Willesee observes that CAF is seeing increasing personal and corporate awareness and involvement in giving and that donors are taking greater interest in how their money is being used. He also acknowledges the role of government legislation and support for pre tax giving over the past decade in helping Australians realise the available benefits to charities and to themselves through regular giving and volunteer commitments.