Households are now assessing the damage of their increased spending over the Christmas period, but just a fraction of that extra spending ended up in the coffers of British charities.

Of the extra money spent by households over December, just 0.6 per cent went on donations to charity, 17 times less than the amount of that extra spending which went on alcohol.

A study by the ESRC Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy concluded that the increased voluntary income charities receive in December is more a result of an additional 5 per cent of people deciding to give to charity than any increase in the amount donors give.

“Our findings show we are not as generous to charities at Christmas as we are to others,” said report co-author Professor Cathy Pharoah. “We increase our spending to ‘eat, drink and be merry’ much more than to support good causes so there is room for charities to encourage people to switch a little more of their spending towards donations, and, for example, give the sterling equivalent of their extra pint of beer to charity during the festive period.”

Poor increase giving more

But the increase in giving to charity was not static across socio-economic groups. While over the ‘Christmas quarter’ (October to December), there was an average increase in household giving og 11 per cent, in the ‘hard-pressed’ demographic group giving rose by 71 per cent.

Pharoah told Civil Society that the value of donations in this group were still small, but predicted that there would be many young people falling within the category.