As the holiday season begins, 49% of charitably inclined Americans in a new survey said they would donate more money this year than they did in 2017.
Classy, an online and mobile fundraising platform for nonprofits, surveyed 1,000 American adults from Nov. 7 to Nov. 16, using the Qualtrics Insight Platform and a panel sourced from Fulcrum by Lucid.
Classy said in a statement that its new survey, which was fielded just after the November midterm elections, was intended to measure end-of-year giving trends against current events.
Higher-income donors in the survey appear highly likely to increase their donations this year. Seventy-four percent from households earning $100,000 to $150,000 and 85% of those earning more than $150,000 said they planned to give more to charity.
Most households earning less than $100,000 planned to give the same amount as last year.
A majority of survey participants said the outcome of the midterms would not affect their plans to donate money on Giving Tuesday — Nov. 27 — or throughout the giving season. Only one-third of consumers said that the election results would influence their plans to give.
However, 44% of Republicans in the poll, compared with 32% of Democrats, said the election outcome would affect their charitable giving this year.
Classy said voting may be connected to generosity and volunteerism, noting that Americans who said they voted in the midterm elections were twice as likely to donate money on Giving Tuesday than nonvoters. Those who said they voted were also twice as likely to volunteer this holiday season when compared with nonvoters.
Recent research showed that investors' market sentiment diverged along party lines following the midterm elections.
Changes to the tax code will likely not affect giving this year, according to the Classy survey, but awareness of reduced tax benefits could influence donation amounts. Although only 10% of respondents said a tax write-off was their main reason for giving, 42% said they would definitely or probably donate less if they knew they were getting less of a tax incentive.
