What motivates rich people to give (and keep giving)?

Of all the questions that can be asked about philanthropy, perhaps the most fundamental ones are the ‘why’ questions: Why do people start giving? And why do they keep giving? After all, if people aren’t giving in the first place, it makes little sense to ask questions about how much they give, the causes they prioritise and what methods they use.

Answering some of these ‘why’ questions was a key aim of our recent book Rich Expectations. (Indeed, the subtitle of the book – and the series it is part of – is “why do rich people give”?) Thus, in our interviews and survey research with rich donors, we asked many questions about what started them giving, and what it was about their experiences that had kept them coming back for more. Here are five things we learned.

The responsibility to give back

We asked participants in our survey whether they agreed that rich people have responsibilities to wider society and found that over half (53%) chose the maximum 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. Interestingly, this was a significant increase from research conducted in 2012, when only 27% or respondents chose the maximum 10 option, suggesting that the idea that those with wealth have a responsibility to give back through philanthropy is gaining ground. As one interviewee told us, “Morally I think giving back is the right thing to do. We have resources that far exceed what we need, we live in a very unequal world, and our children live in that world too, so it’s right to try to make it fairer.”

Greater awareness of need and more opportunities to help

When we asked respondents in our survey which factors they believe are influencing philanthropic behaviours and attitudes in the UK, 76% of them said more awareness of needs and/or opportunities to help was the key factor. In many ways this is unsurprising; it has long been noted that awareness of need is a key motivator for giving, and the challenges of the last decade – including the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis – have led to much more obvious and acute needs across society. Of course, people also need to find ways to act on the sense of responsibility they feel when they become aware of need, so being able to identify opportunities to help through giving and volunteering is crucial.

Family

We found that there were often more personal factors that drove rich people’s belief in the responsibility to give back too. In particular, many of those we spoke to identified the influence of family. One interviewee told us that, “For nine out of ten people the most important influence is our parents and the values that you get as a child. My mother imbued in me the need to be aware of other people’s needs and to help. When I talk to fellow philanthropists, I realise that’s what happened with all of us.”

Gaining a sense of purpose

Some of the wealthy people we spoke to told us – often in quite personal and revealing terms – how they felt that philanthropy had given a sense of purpose in their life that might otherwise have been lacking. One interviewee said, “I can’t think of any better things to do with my time, and at a very personal level, I think I’d feel a bit lost without my philanthropy”. Another told us that “philanthropy has become my entire life. As a young person, like many people, I became a bit lost, and this is how I found myself”. For many donors, this sense of purpose and fulfilment is a key part of the reward they get from giving, and in many cases, we found that it had led them to become much more involved in philanthropy over time.

Rewards of building relationships

An important element of the fulfilment rich people get from their philanthropy is the opportunity to develop new relationships. In some case this may be relationships with other wealthy people that share their values and sense of responsibility, which can be very reassuring. As one interviewee told us, “the good thing about doing philanthropy is you realise that not all wealthy people are really bad, and you come across a lot of people who think like you and are doing more than you are to try and change the society we live in.” But we also heard many times about how rewarding rich donors found the relationships they had been able to build with people working in charities, academia or the arts. Some of those we interviewed highlighted the positive impact these relationships had on expanding their own world view; as one told us, “philanthropy has exposed me to all sorts of people with utterly different backgrounds and thoughts. We are deeply social beings, and I have benefitted massively from most of the philanthropic things I have done.” Others, meanwhile, spoke of the sense of optimism that relationships with people working on addressing issues had brought them. As one interviewee put it, “the people we work with are part of the solution, not the problem. They are a beacon of light: remarkable people doing remarkable stuff- it gets me out of bed in the morning.”

It is clear that a broad range of factors lead people to start giving and to keep on giving, many of which remain deeply personal. For fundraisers who want to engage with potential wealthy donors, as well as for those who want to help build a stronger culture of philanthropic giving in the UK, understanding these factors is a crucial starting point.

Rich Expectations – why rich people give is a deep-dive into who gives, why they give and how expectations shape UK philanthropy, based on 20 years of research with rich donors. You can order your copy here!