Sheffield area named the most generous in the UK, based on charity donations

Sheffielders are famed for their generosity, and an area of the city has now been named as the most generous in the whole UK.

Sheffield Hallam topped the list, based on the proportion of their household income people donate to charitable causes.

People living in the constituency gave away on average 3.2 per cent of their income, a report by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) found.

A survey of more than 13,000 people showed that it was often those in the country's least affluent neighbourhoods who were most generous.

Where else in the UK are people most generous?

Donors in Belfast West, one of the most deprived parts of Northern Ireland, where more than a quarter (28.5 per cent) of children live in poverty, gave on average 2.2 per cent of their household income to good causes.

Residents in the wealthy new London constituency of Kensington and Bayswater gave the second most money to charity but this constituted just 0.5 per cent of household income – the lowest out of all constituencies in the country.

The report, published today, Monday, March 25, showed that the British public donated a record £13.9 billion to charity in 2023 - nine per cent more than the £12.7bn donated in 2022.

But it revealed that the number of people regularly donating to charity had fallen from 65 per cent in 2019 to fewer than six in 10 (58 per cent) in 2023.

'Significant pressure' on charities

The CAF said it was only because donors' average contributions had increased that the total figure had gone up.

The Covid-19 pandemic and cost-of-living crisis placed 'significant pressure' on charities, who faced greater demand and declining income, the registered charity added.

Some 75% of British adults did at least one charitable activity in the past 12 months, including donating, volunteering, and sponsoring.

On average, constituencies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland gave more, as a proportion of income, than those in England.

'Britain relying on dwindling group of donors'

Neil Heslop, chief executive of CAF, said: "The act of giving connects us to one another in communities and across society: a more giving society can be one with a stronger social fabric.

"But it's concerning that we’re relying on a dwindling group of regular givers, and the typical donation is static and eroded by inflation."

"For these reasons, we need to foster a more widespread and sustainable culture of giving to support charities that are squeezed from all sides," he added.

"The vital next step is for government to harness charitable giving for every part of the UK, by committing to drawing up a national strategy for philanthropy and charitable giving, ideally as part of a renewed approach to the whole of civil society."

The report was produced from an online survey with a sample size of 13,164.