There’s no doubt that the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has drastically changed our world and the way we live. Daily routines have been uprooted and turned upside down, while communities have needed to adjust how they operate businesses, how to keep everyone socially distanced, and so on. While it can be pretty clear how much this disruption has affected for-profit businesses and organizations, how this pandemic has affected non-profit organizations falls to the wayside. Here are a few of philanthropic statistics about charitable giving in a COVID-19 world.
Donation Amount
Contrary to what might be expected, considering the economic hardships that many are facing nowadays, most donors plan to maintain or increase the amount they donate this year to their respective organizations. Specifically, 25% plan to increase their donations in response to COVID-19, while 54% plan to maintain their current giving levels. Millennials, in particular, have plans to increase the amount they donate to charities by 46% due to the pandemic, while 14% of Baby Boomers and 25% of Gen X plan the same.
Volunteer Work
Unlike the increase in monetary donations, volunteer activity will see a downward shift due to quarantine and stay-at-home orders, as well as the need to socially distance from one another and follow established CDC guidelines. This is a huge challenge for non-profits that rely on volunteer work to help keep them afloat and deliver critical services to those they’re helping, especially since nearly half of the surveyed volunteers have plans to decrease or stop their volunteer time altogether because of the pandemic. This is more likely to happen with older generations, such as the Baby Boomers and Silent Generation; conversely, Gen X and Millennials expect to increase their volunteer time.
Knowledge
Even though we’ve learned much since the pandemic first started, there’s still much that we’ve yet to learn about the coronavirus and how it impacts us in the long-term. This uncertainty affects how donors decide to help combat the virus; many donors don’t feel they know enough about it to effectively support those who are fighting the spread of COVID-19. A third of donors don’t feel that they have the information they need to understand how their contributions are helping, and older generations are unsure of how to direct their donations in the first place.