Almost one in six regular donors plan to give less money to charity over the next three months, new research has found.
The data, published as part of the Cost of Giving Monitor from the creative firm Good Agency, shows that more than half of the public – 52 per cent – said their personal finances were worse now than three months ago and three-quarters said they were paying more attention to their spending habits.
Just one in 20 donors said they would increase their giving over the next quarter.
The research showed that about four in 10 respondents said the economic downturn meant they “feel moved to support those less fortunate than me in current times”, rising to 62 per cent of people who already donated regularly to charity.
Quoted in the same report, Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of the food poverty charity FareShare, says he is “pretty terrified” about growing demand for its services as inflation and fuel bills continue to rise.
The research, conducted by the polling company YouGov, also found that just 34 per cent of the public agreed that charities were doing an “effective job at supporting people during the cost-of-living crisis”.
Researchers found that 14 per cent disagreed and another third neither agreed nor disagreed. The remainder said they did not know.
Among those who gave regularly to charity, the proportion of people who considered charities to be effective rose to 45 per cent, with 11 per cent saying they were not.
The report says: “This shows that there is work to be done for the sector to prove its impact.”
Charities face a challenge to “prove your worth and relevance in this crisis”, the report says.
The report also quotes from a roundtable of charity bosses hosted by the Good Agency, where Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, said fundraising was his “number-one priority at the moment” because “we’re worried about what happens to our supporter base, what they can afford, and what that will mean in terms of impact on us as an organisation”.
Boswell said: “We are really, really focused [on our work] but we’re also pretty terrified about the demand that is coming downstream.”
Chris Norman, chief executive of Good Agency, said: “The future for charity giving is more uncertain now that it has been for many years, and at a time when the demand for their services is growing rapidly.”
The report’s findings are based on a YouGov poll of more than 2,000 adults conducted earlier this month.
The report, which was shared with Third Sector, can be requested by emailing Good Agency directly. The company plans to release a second wave of findings in November.