I was shocked to read that gift aid to charities in the last tax year only came to £1.6bn. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-charity-tax-relief-statistics/uk-charity-tax-relief-statistics-commentary Multiplying by 4, that suggests giving to charities on which gift aid could be claimed back was only £6.4bn.
Now some of you may respond that £6.4bn is a lot of money! It is- I’m not a multibillionaire for whom £6.4bn would be pocket change. But when you put it in the context of other big figures, the level of giving is shockingly low.
The UK GDP in 2023 was £2.274 trillion https://www.statista.com/topics/3795/gdp-of-the-uk/#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20the%20gross%20domestic%20product%20of%20the,pounds%20in%202022%2C%20and%202.176%20trillion%20in%202021. So giving as a percentage of GDP is: (£6.4bn+£1.6bn)X100/£2.274tr=0.35%. A third of one percent of the national GDP is charitable giving that benefits from gift aid.
Another way to think about this is to divide the giving by population. UK population is currently about 67 million. So that large £6.4bn figure becomes £96 per person per year of charitable giving. That is about £8 per month!
It may be that the issue here is that much generous charitable giving is happening without gift aid. Whether by income poor people who are generous from assets, or simply people not doing the paperwork for gift aid, we may be a very generous nation. But I think it is more likely that between our expanding consumer lifestyles and our high house prices and taxes, we are not very generous to charities as a nation.
Perhaps this also highlights that the charitable giving of the past flowed from a particular worldview and values. It flowed from Christian faith, and a belief in a God who is radically generous to us for eternity. 2 Corinthians 8:8-9 I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. 9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 9:7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Without that faith, we should not be surprised to find generous giving declining, and what giving remains being connected with attempts to gain fame or influence.
Edit: MC suggest GDP may not translate well to household income. Household income of £38k, 28.4 million households, gives UK Household income of £1.08bn, about half the figure I used.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/…/househ…/financialyearending2022
IM points to CAF figures, which suggest giving is about double the gift aid figures. This could be due to people self reporting, but schemes like payroll giving and business giving by wealthy people could explain the discrepancy.
https://www.cafonline.org/…/research/uk-giving-report….
The result is that giving as a percentage of UK income could be 4 times higher than the figure I originally calculated, and 2 times higher per person. Not super generous, but less shockingly low.
Jots and Scribbles 
£38k is the median (post tax & benefits) household income, but for calculating a total income base from which to work out the % given to charity you would need the mean, which is higher on account of the positive skew in income. This is much less quoted, and the only thing I could find was a bargraph on the ONS which looked around £45k.
Any giving by pensioners wouldn’t be in your original numbers, but would be in CAF, and might be significant. CAF’s numbers probably include legacies which aren’t exactly an act of generosity.
People may also be less willing to give because they fell they already paid for a lot of charity in their taxes – both funding the welfare state and UK Aid (which comes out pretty similar to all other giving in the UK!)
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