Charities Aid Foundation’s annual UK Giving report is the largest study of giving behaviour in the UK. Building on last year’s Covid-19 Special Report, the 2021 edition continues to explore the impact of Covid-19 on the UK Giving landscape. Donor behaviour has changed during the pandemic – but what drove those changes and to what extent can we expect their effects to be permanent?

Donors moved online during the pandemic, and it is safe to assume that this was driven in no small part by restrictions to in-person fundraising such as street appeals, door-to-door campaigns and indoor events.

The effect of the pandemic is clear in the CAF data – in March 2020 one in ten (13%) donors gave via a website or app. (and 11% using a debit card but this figure jumped to 24% and 25% respectively by April 2020. Unsurprisingly, younger donors were more likely to donate via an app or a website compared to older ones (38% of 25-34s vs 18% of over 65s) but there are indications that older donors adapted their giving behaviour during lockdown, with those aged 65+ who gave via a website or app increasing from 14% in 2019 to 18% in 2020.

As online giving increased, giving with notes and coins became rare. In 2019, more than half (51%) of respondents said they donated in cash. In 2020, this fell to 38%, slumping to 9% in May and June. There are good reasons to believe that during the pandemic digital giving made up for some of the loss in cash donations, but as restrictions were being lifted giving via a website or app was not sustained, dropping back to 14% in August 2021. At the same time cash donations remain subdued (18% in August 2021).

Overall levels of donations do not seem to have greatly suffered, mostly because a pre-pandemic trend of fewer donors giving more has continued. But the wider question remains whether digital donations can fill the gap left by a sustained reduction in cash donations - both in terms of how people engage with digital giving and how charities connect with donors.

Read the full article about behavior changes in giving during the pandemic by Daniel Ferrell-Schweppenstedde at Charities Aid Foundation.