Donate blood. Donate organs. Donate time. And the classic: donate money. Just like that. Tax-exempt. For a good cause. Whether you’re rich or poor. Each person gives to precisely those causes that they personally believe to be important. Donating is an act of both solidarity and liberality.

We donate to help alleviate poverty and to protect the environment. One donation literally saves lives, another saves the village theatre. Eighty per cent of all households spend an average of 400 Swiss francs per year on charitable donations. Donations are made even by those who don’t have much. Philanthropic engagement has a profound impact on our society. It takes the load where no one else carries it.

Why are we even generous? The reasons for donating are complex. We give and are generous – partly out of solidarity and empathy, partly out of compassion. And sometimes, we’re driven by a guilty conscience or even social pressure. But is it more selfish incentives like social recognition that make us give more?

Current donation levels show that donations in France are increasingly focussed on projects that ‘help those in need’. The distribution of donations is stable here in Switzerland, where we primarily give to organisations working for nature conservation, environmental protection and animal welfare, people with disabilities, and social and emergency aid. Trust in the organisation collecting the donations is crucial to our willingness to donate. Transparency about how donations are used demonstrably increases people’s willingness to donate, as does personal communication, including via digital channels. Ultimately, donations are always a message from people to people, because a generous world is a better world.

Be inspired by this thought-provoking issue of the Philanthropist. And maybe it’ll make you consider donating, too.