Helping out

We asked if you volunteer for a charity or other organisation and if you donate to charity.

Just less than one-fifth of you do some unpaid help or work for a local, national or international organisation or charity.

The organisations that you help most are those who deal with children or young people (29%). This was followed by local community or neighbourhood groups (24%), with religious groups on 20% and school or other education groups on 19%.

Around half of you who do voluntary work, do so every week or even more regularly than that.

Around 7 in 10 of you gave money to charity in the previous year and the proportion of people who donate to charity tends to increase with age. While about 57% of 16-34 year-olds give to charity, almost 80% of those aged 55 or older donate money.

The self-employed are most likely to donate money and are also most likely to provide unpaid help to charities or other organisations. Retired people are slightly more likely to both donate money and volunteer their time. Full-time students are less likely to give to charity, but more likely to perform voluntary work than average, whilst employees are the other way round – more likely to donate money than do voluntary work.