A broadening landscape of doing good
It may not be just the ways in which we are giving that are changing - is our very notion of what counts as giving changing too? There are signs that it may be; many of which are linked to trends that were already in evidence, but which once again may have been accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis.
The rise of mutual aid groups during the pandemic, for instance, may be further evidence of a growing desire for participation. Millions across the country joined efforts to help people affected by the crisis in their local areas by donating time, goods as well as money. This apparent renewed interest in personal involvement when addressing societal issues raises wider questions for civil society organisations across the board. One outcome of the pandemic could be that an increasing number of donors want their relationship with the organisations and causes they support to be less transactional.
Depending on the future economic situation, informal peer-to-peer giving could also become more important. We know already from our research into UK giving in the first half of 2020 that a larger number of people mentioned that they were helping out people they know - either through direct financial support, by buying goods or services for them, or by donating their time to assist them with challenges they face.
New digitally-enabled networks, which had already been prominent in recent years, also seemed to gain further momentum during the pandemic - with the Black Lives Matter movement being the most prominent example. What could this mean for patterns of participation post-pandemic, and how should ‘traditionally organised fundraising charities’ position themselves in relation to these movements if they sustain their energy in the coming years?
There could be also more blending between giving and commercial transactions going forward. Does the advent of cause-related marketing and ethical shopping, for instance, mean that people are counting parts of their consumer spending increasingly towards their overall “social good total”; in particular when there is a real transaction involved (e.g. a percentage of a payment being directly donated) or when people buy a product to support a particular group or further a cause?
Government also provided a large subsidy for the service industry in 2020 and called it ‘Eat Out to Help Out’. People might not have considered it as a straightforward donation when they went out to their favourite local restaurant to prevent it from closing, but the language used in the campaign clearly centred around notions of support and local action - perhaps pointing to the state and the public sector seeking to harness some of the motivations that would traditionally be associated with giving to charity?