More than a million extra people donated to charity in the last financial year, but even so the total value of donations made by the British public remained flat at £11bn.
The UK Giving 2011 report, released this morning, found that the level of giving in 2010/2011 was the same as that of the previous year and down £900m in real terms on the pre-recession high of 2007/2008.
Despite low consumer confidence throughout the period, the proportion of British adults giving reached previous highs of 58 per cent from a low of 54 per cent in 2008/2009. In any given month over the past year an average of 29.5 million people donated to charity in the UK. This represented a 1.1 million increase on 2009/2010 levels, but given that the average amount given per month slipped from £12 to £11 year on year, this increase in the number of givers did not push the needle on the total amount donated by individuals.