Sixty percent of Americans have donated money to an organization in the past month, 39 percent have donated time and 65 percent have helped a stranger, according to a study released this week by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), a UK based nonprofit. The United States, as determined by the first ever “World Giving Index,” is tied with Switzerland as the fifth most giving nation on earth.
Australia tops a list compiled using results from a 153-country Gallup poll conducted via telephone and face-to-face survey that illuminates the unique and universal ways that citizens of the world give to others.
Helping strangers, for instance, is the most common way that the world gives. Forty-five percent of survey respondents claimed to have helped a stranger during the previous month. By contrast, only 30 percent had given money to a charity and just 20 percent had donated time.
The citizens of Liberia, no. 39 on the “World Giving Index,” help more strangers per capita than any other country surveyed. Seventy-six percent of respondents in the small West African nation claimed to have helped someone they didn’t know in the previous month. Liberians aren’t as generous with their cash. Only eight percent had donated money in the past month.
“Each country has its own unique footprint and its own way to give,” according to the report, which is available online.
The most populous countries in the world, China and India, fell into the bottom 15 percent of the “World Giving Index.” In China, tied with Lithuania and Greece for no. 147 on the index, 11 percent have donated money in the last month, four percent have given time and 28 percent have helped a stranger.
In perhaps the study’s most surprising find, the CAF determined people who live in happy countries are more giving than people who live in wealthy countries. The finding contradicts the notion that wealth is the primary inspira of generosity.
“The level of satisfaction or happiness of the population is emerging as a key driver for increasing the giving of money,” the report concludes. “Those who donate are likely to help improve the happiness of others, who in turn may be more likely to give to charity and so on.”
Money, time and random acts of kindness can buy happiness. And happiness, it appears, is contagious.
Image via the Charities Aid Foundation.