In the Give.org Special Donor Trust Report: Donor Participation, we ask participants to identify whether, over the past 5 years, they had been engaged with charities and, if so, whether they stopped, decreased, maintained, or increased
their donations to charities. Our goal is to gain insight into why some donors disengage with charities and explore possible ways to encourage greater participation moving forward.
Our findings show that 59% of people with household income above $70k who stopped giving to charities over the past five years agree with the statement “there are people out there with significantly more money who should give to charity
instead of me.” Finances aside, participants say they stopped contributing because they preferred other ways of being generous, did not trust the soliciting charity, or did not feel like they had been asked. Notably, 77% of Boomers who
stopped donating said they could not afford to, compared to only 27% of Gen Zers. On the other hand, 45% of Gen Zers who stopped contributing said they did not feel like they had been asked, compared to only 4% of Boomers.