UK Charitable Giving
Recently I found an interesting dataset from the Guardian’s datablog showing the levels of charitable giving across different age groups in the UK. The data is interesting as it uses more than 30 years of data and shows the changes in attitude towards donating money to charities over time.
Originally I used this dataset for one of my other blog articles (Business Intelligence Bout: MicroStrategy 9.3 vs. OlikView 11) but decided that it could also be used in an article which demonstrates the power of business intelligence and how it reveals the story behind data.
After downloading the spreadsheet I set about creating a simple dashboard using MicroStrategy to visualise the data. The data set is quite small as it has mostly been aggregated into yearly values but the trends and changes can clearly be seen when the whole plot is displayed.
The first panel in my dashboard displayed the % of households in the UK donating money towards charity. The first line graph makes it immediately clear that the amount of household donors have dropped from over 32.00% down to about 27.00% over a period of 30 years. We can also see that the lowest point was in the year between 1998 and 1999. The bar graph displays a more granular view of the household percentage by breaking it down into age groups. It appears that younger people (<30) are less likely to donate than people who are double their age (60-74). Also another interesting trend is the drop over time in donations from younger age groups (30-59) whilst the trend appears to be the opposite for the older age groups (60+).
Despite a fall in number of households donating to charity, the average weekly giving has consistently increased over the same period of time (in real terms). The chart above shows the average in two settings; one where only donors are included and another where the entire population is taken into account. In both cases the trend lines are positive with the average weekly donation starting at just over £1 (total population) and £3 (donor population) and increasing over the course of 30 years to about £3 (total population) and about £9.50 (donor population). This indicates that the average donation has increased to three times as much as before despite a 5% drop in the number of households donating towards charity.
The last panel of my dashboard displays the generosity of each age group and how it has changed. The first graph shows the share of donations in each year between all age groups. For 1978 we can immediately see that the biggest share of donations comes from people who are between 45-59 years old and the portion smallest comes from the youngest (<30) and oldest age groups (75+). As time progresses we see a trend where the 3 youngest age groups begin to donate less; most noticeably the people who are under the age of 30. In contrast to this, donators who are older than 60 have increased the amount they give to charitable causes; this is strongly highlighted in the age group of 75+ (orange) which now makes up almost 25% of all donations (up from <10%).
This trend shows that the older generations are more generous than the younger population of today. An interesting note to make is that many of the people in the older age groups would’ve fallen into the middle age groups 30 years ago; so perhaps this trend is simply showing a certain generation as being more inclined to share their earnings with charitable causes. By taking a look at the statistics from Google’s public data (using World Bank data) we can discover that the UK’s average life expectancy has improved from 73.18 years (1978) to 80.4 (2010) – This carries some significance as it shows the UK population is more likely to reach the 75+ age bracket which may be one of the main reasons for the increase in donator share.
The final graph is the generosity graph showing the donation amount as a percentage of their spending. The general trend as a whole looks to be positive with the greatest increase being the 75+ age group where it has increased from just ~60% to ~160%. This graph unsurprisingly reflects the same trends which are displayed in the share of donations graph; as time has progressed older generations have increased the amount they donate whilst younger generations have done the opposite.
Kingsley Hau's Blog 
People in the UK are becoming more selfish. If you live there, be more caring for others less fortunate than you!