THE FIGURES
Every statistic sourced. Every caveat kept.
This is the public evidence base behind Givlo, presented in full — including the limits of what each study can claim. The evidence on childhood giving is associational, not causal, and we say so. We think the honest version is still the strongest case anyone has.
FIGURE 01
Young giving is in steep decline.
The share of UK 16–24-year-olds who donated to or sponsored a charity fell by roughly a third in five years — the steepest fall of any age group. Overall UK participation fell to 50% in 2024, the lowest since tracking began in 2016.
CAF UK Giving Report 2025, Charities Aid Foundation. YouGov survey of 13,459 UK adults aged 16+, nationally representative.
Caveat: a 2024 methodology change (prompting recall of more donation types) raised the measured amount given; the participation decline is consistent across waves.
FIGURE 02
The household conversation is the biggest measured lever.
Children whose parents talk with them about giving are 12.5 percentage points more likely to give — an effect that held after controlling for the parents' own giving, income, race, age and gender. Talking beat role-modelling: parental giving alone had no significant effect once conversation was accounted for.
Women Give 2013, Women's Philanthropy Institute, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Longitudinal analysis of 903 children across two waves of the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics.
Caveat: US sample; the outcome is child giving measured during childhood, not a tracked adult outcome. Associational, not causal.
FIGURE 03
Giving as a child does not depend on family income.
Nearly nine in ten children aged 8–19 gave at least once across the study period — and giving did not differ by family income level once other factors were controlled. The habit is available to every household; what varies is whether anyone builds it.
Women Give 2013, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Same panel as Figure 02.
Caveat: US; child-reported giving counted 'if only a few pennies'.
FIGURE 04
Childhood social action narrows the civic gap.
Among UK first-time voters from politically disengaged households, 56% who volunteered as children said they were certain to vote, against 31% who did not — a 25-point boost that nearly closed the gap with children from engaged households.
Fox, S. (2024), European Journal of Political Research. Structural equation modelling of UK Household Longitudinal Survey panel data, first-time voters in the 2015/2017/2019 general elections.
Caveat: the average effect across all children was small; the benefit concentrates in the disengaged group — who are also the least likely to volunteer.
FIGURE 05
The prize: a £14bn-a-year habit.
UK public giving in 2025. The participation decline in Figure 01 is not a revenue problem yet — older donors give more — but it is a pipeline problem. The donors of 2050 are forming the habit, or not, right now.
CAF UK Giving Report 2025, Charities Aid Foundation.
Caveat: total amount given; participation and amount move differently (see Figure 01).
What we do not claim: that childhood giving causes adult giving (the rigorous evidence is associational), that giving improves financial literacy (no isolated research supports it), or the “125% more likely” figure that circulates online (it cannot be verified against a primary publication, so we do not use it). The full research file, with methodology notes for every figure, is available on request.