Charitable Giving Up Around World, Study Finds

A growing proportion of the world's population is giving money or time to charity, a new report from the Charities Aid Foundation finds.

Based on surveys conducted by Gallup in 145 countries, the 2015 edition of the World Giving Index reports that 1.4 billion people made a gift to charity in 2014—a global participation level of 31.5 percent, up from 28.3 percent in 2013. The study also found that almost half (48.9 percent) the world's population age 15 and older helped a stranger in 2014, up slightly from the year before, while 21 percent of the world’s population said they had volunteered time—a small decrease from the 21.3 percent who said they volunteered in 2013.