Charity donations from Dutch citizens fell to its lowest point in 2022

The amount of money and items donated to charity has never been as low as it was in 2022. Companies were especially stingy, and did not donate as much as in previous years. The Volkskrant wrote that wealthy households donated a smaller portion of their income compared to lower income households.

The research results were released on Wednesday with the presentation of Geven in Nederland, a biennial study into the donating behavior of Dutch citizens. The research is carried out by the Center for Philanthropic Studies of the VU University.

In 2022, approximately 0.62 percent of the gross domestic product of the Netherlands was given to charity. That is the lowest the percentage has ever been. The Netherlands gave 5.3 billion euros to charity in 2022, less than in 2020, when the country was suffering from the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the number of homes that donated increased: 76 percent gave money or items to charity organizations compared to 73 percent of homes that did so two years earlier.

Companies are the main reason for the decrease. They did a lot less sponsoring and gifts to charitable organizations than in 2020, possibly due to the high inflation rates and economic insecurity. They donated around 2.2 billion euros that year, with the number dropping by 400 million euros in 2022.

Four in ten companies donated in 2022, as opposed to the 61 percent that did so in 2020.