Icon: more useful calculations from Intelligent Giving
    

Calculate how much to give

WE ASSUME you're not on the breadline. Works best without extravagant spouses or mortgages. How can we improve this?

I bring in £ per month after tax
Mitigating circumstances
I want to give the same proportion of my income as:
Monthly...
Your recommended amount will appear here
Recalculate

> Click for our sums
How we calculate
"Giving" statistics vary wildly. What we've done here is take rough estimates based on a range of sources. Our sums work like this: 

- Mitigating circumstances: If your income covers more than two adults, you have higher expenses than the average so we take 20% off the amount. More than two children also get you a 20% discount.
- Committed givers are a compromise between the oft-touted 1% figure and the 10% 'tithe' that the big religions set as an ideal. 5% it is (and many people subscribe to it).
- The average Brit gives the smallest amount on this list. It's pitiful. 0.8%. You can afford more than that. Buy cheaper wine.
- The Giving Campaign, a government-sponsored project which ended in 2003, conducted a ton of research and somehow came up with... 1.5%.
- The poorest givers - that's the poorest 20% in this country - are also the most generous. Maybe because they see the problems up close, maybe because they're nicer people... who knows... they give on average 3%.
- The Americans are mighty generous. Much more than us. They give 3.2%.
- Elton John. Someone in the office said they read somewhere that he gives away 23%, though we can't substantiate the figure. It's quite likely as he is famously generous but don't quote us.
- Bill Gates. It's 80%, plus or minus. Of course in his case there's a fair bit left over.

 
What percentage of his
Submitted by Alan D (not verified) on Tue, 06/05/2008 - 3:16am.

What percentage of his wealth does Bill Gates give to charity ?


What about the time factor?
Submitted by LMC on Mon, 04/12/2006 - 6:38pm.

However wealthy someone is in monetary terms and however much they give to charity as a percentage of that wealth, or in actual numbers, we all only have 24 hours in a day. The extra hours I put in for the charity I work for - at a salary far less than I could get for a similar job in the City - make up for me spending a higher percentage of my salary than most on having a good time. (I waste the rest).

It's practically impossible to assign a £ value to volunteering (I know you guys at IG don't like that word, but until someone can find a sensible and not puke-making single word to describe giving your time, tough). "Volunteers are not paid - not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless" (Anon - one of my favourite quotes).

Having plugged the £ numbers in, I'm officially a stingy [insert choice of insult here]. Do I look bovvered? Calculating my hourly wage from my salary and adding in my time triples that amount, putting it well into "Committed giver" territory. Since I probably should be committed, I can live with that.

-----------------------------------------------
... they nearly thought I am Vlad the Impaler (yep, I was totally honest)


Your donations calculator
Submitted by hokum on Fri, 01/12/2006 - 11:12am.

Do your calculations include what people leave in their will? How about suggestions for that?


The poorest givers
Submitted by Editor Dave on Tue, 07/11/2006 - 8:02pm.

In response to Jo, it's the poorest 20% in the country. For more details on the calculations, click the "Click for our sums" link.

We have been asked to incorporate a minimum cut-off figure, below which you shouldn't have to give anything. But I think you'll find that the poorest 20% don't apply such a thing. Nor do the famously generous Bangladeshis/Indians/Egyptians etc. And anyway we're not forcing anyone to use their figure. We're just letting you know what other people do.

Dave Pitchford, Editor


Its because the website
Submitted by Steward on Fri, 03/11/2006 - 5:20pm.

Its because the website calculator works on percentages of net income, not actual £££. Poorer people on average give higher proportions of their lower incomes than the average wealthy person. The average American gives a higher proportion than the average Brition.

Ian Clark


HOw do you define the
Submitted by Jo on Fri, 03/11/2006 - 12:44pm.

HOw do you define the poorest givers?

I was under the impression that American's were considered the most generous in terms of charitable donations yet the avg. american gives only £4 more than the poorest givers


Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.