Rethinking the Decline in Giving: A Systems Approach to Charitable Participation
By Claire Routley, 26th August 2025
Dr Claire Routley is Consultancy Director at our friends Legacy Futures. In a special blog for AAW she reflects on the decline in giving and considers what organisations can do to help reverse this trend.
Public participation in charitable giving is declining, with only half of UK adults now making donations. While this trend isn’t new, the sector still doesn’t have a definitive answer as to why it’s happening.
The decline been linked to factors from economic pressure and donor fatigue to a decline in religious participation. All of these are likely contributing, but crucially, they’re not operating in isolation. These forces interact in complex, sometimes hidden ways. That’s where systems thinking comes in.
Rather than viewing the decline in giving as a linear problem with a simple fix, systems thinking helps us recognise it as the product of interdependent, reinforcing dynamics. And by stepping back to explore the system as a whole, we can begin to spot strategic points of intervention: places where we may be able to halt or even reverse the decline.
What’s Reinforcing the Decline?
Several feedback loops seem to be amplifying the downward trend:
Belief and Participation: Younger generations are less likely to see charities as effective agents of change. This scepticism leads to lower engagement, which weakens charities' impact, which can reinforce the perception that they’re ineffective.
Income and Giving: As disposable income shrinks, especially among the middle class, fewer people give. This in turn can weaken the very social fabric that once encouraged giving.
Social Fabric and Participation: Community participation is waning. Fewer people are part of groups where giving is a social norm. As these bonds fray, giving becomes less visible and less habitual.
Together, these loops erode both the cultural and economic foundations of broad-based giving.
A Fragile Balance
Despite the fall in participation, total charitable income has increased — but that’s thanks to a shrinking core of highly engaged donors, often referred to as the “civic core.” Their generosity is helping to stabilise the system, but this model may not be sustainable.
Meanwhile, deeper systemic shifts — rising inequality, political polarisation, and a loss of trust in institutions — are reshaping the fundraising landscape. Technologies like AI may improve targeting and efficiency, but they also risk deepening economic divides, particularly if they displace middle-class jobs and further erode disposable income.
What can we do?
One of the central ideas in systems thinking is that small, well-placed interventions can create disproportionate change — a concept sometimes called “social acupuncture.” Instead of pushing against the system, we can look for points where momentum already exists and build on it.
Here are three ideas for where that might begin:
1. Tell Our Bigger Stories
We often focus on specific campaigns or impact stats — but can we better tell the epic, collective story of what giving has made possible over time?
Over decades, the March of Dimes and Rotary International have helped very nearly eliminate polio.
Global extreme poverty has dropped by two-thirds in just 30 years.
Charities helped fund the COVID-19 vaccine.
When people see that giving works on a historic scale, it strengthens belief — and belief reinforces participation.
2. Make First Steps Easy
Research shows that small civic actions — like signing a petition — make people more likely to donate, especially when the causes are aligned. These “gateway behaviours” help people see themselves as someone who takes action, which creates consistency in future decisions.
Charities can design journeys that begin with low-barrier engagement, nudging supporters along a path toward deeper involvement.
3. Create Greater Connectedness
A recent study showed people tend to underestimate how empathetic others are, making them less likely to take social risks like striking up conversations or asking for help. But simply telling people the truth — that most people do care — boosted perceptions of others’ empathy and expanded social networks.
Charities, by their very nature, are built on compassion. Who better to remind people of the kindness of others – and potentially help to rebuild our social fabric?
These are just three ideas. Tapping into the creativity, ingenuity and lived experience across the charity sector could uncover many more. From frontline practitioners to digital innovators, fundraisers to researchers, we have the insight and imagination to co-create meaningful change.
No single organisation can shift these systemic patterns alone. But together — through collective insight, bold experimentation, and shared learning — the sector can begin to rebalance the dynamics and rebuild a culture of participation.
It’s not easy work. But if we care about the future of giving, it’s work worth doing.
Visit here to find out more about Claire and the services offered at Legacy Futures.