The total amount given to charity increased by 12 per cent to £10.4bn in 2012/13, according to new donor research from the Charities Aid Foundation.
The research, UK Giving 2013/14 - an update, is based on what around 1,500 people say they have given.
In cash terms total donations were up £1.1bn, the report suggests. In real terms, after adjusting for inflation, donations were up £800m.
It comes after the controversial UK Giving 2012 survey reported a 20 per cent drop in giving to £9.6bn in real terms in 2011/12, the biggest since the survey began in 2004/05.
Many in the sector, particularly in the fundraising community, criticised the report and questioned the research. The Institute of Fundraising said the findings did not reflect the experiences of its members.
NCVO and CAF announced earlier this month that they would stop jointly producing the UK Giving survey.
The latest data has been published by CAF, which plans to evolve the report into a quarterly donor survey from next year to look at attitudes towards giving and donor behaviour.
The report is based on a survey of UK adults carried out by the Office for National Statistics in August, November and February 2012/13. CAF said a total of 1,472 face-to-face interviews were conducted for the survey.
The report says it “aims to provide our best estimate of the UK giving picture for 2012/13”.
“While the absolute numbers may not be completely definitive (although it could be argued that any survey only provides estimates), we are confident in the direction of travel,” it says.
“A recovery in giving by the UK public is clearly good news for the sector, particularly as securing funding from other channels becomes increasingly challenging.”
The report finds that the proportion of people saying they donate in a typical month increased to 57 per cent in 2012/13, which equates to 29.5m adults. It is up from the 55 per cent who said they regularly give in 2011/12 and climbing back to peaks of 58 per cent in both 2010/11 and before the economic downturn in 2005/06.
In 2012/13, the mean donation was £29, up £2 on the 2011/12 figure, but lower than the mean donation levels between 2007/08 and 2010/11 which ranged between £30 and £32, the report shows.
Like-for-like comparison not possible
But the latest findings come with a caveat – that due to changes to the survey a direct, like-for-like comparison between 2012/13 and 2011/12, and before, is not possible.
The report says an analysis was carried out to provide a “seasonally adjusted” view to give a more comparable picture of giving.
Deborah Fairclough, head of research at CAF, said in early 2012 there were discussions about moving to a more detailed focus and increasing the number of data capture points from three to four.
Previously, the survey ran in June, October and February. In 2012/13 this was changed to August, November and February with the intention to introduce a new quarterly survey carried out in February, May, August and November, she said.
However, the researchers found that a number of high-profile campaigns in November, namely Children in Need and the Poppy Appeal, increased donations significantly during the month.
Fairclough said CAF commissioned the market research firm GfK NOP to analyse the data since 2004/05 in terms of the specific causes given to. This showed a high amount going to children’s charities and ‘other causes’, which includes veteran/military charities, in November 2012, along with an increase in ‘one-off’ giving.
The researchers removed 55 respondents from the 2012/13 analysis on the basis they were Children in Need and Poppy Appeal “extras”. Fairclough said this included those who donated to ‘children’s causes’ and/or ‘other causes’ by non-regular methods, such as cash, in November 2012.
Fairclough said: “I hope we’ve been very open and transparent in terms of what we’ve done and I hope we’ve been perfectly clear it is a direction of travel and the figures are estimates.”
