Africa’s philanthropy picture in 2024
African philanthropy statistics in the latest reporting show a region where giving is broad, personal, and unusually concentrated in everyday support. The strongest pattern is not just generosity, but the way Africans give: often directly, often locally, and often through religious or community channels (World Giving Report 2025).
At a glance
- 72% of people in Africa donated money in 2024 (World Giving Report 2025).
- 55% gave money directly to a person or family in need (World Giving Report 2025).
- 24% donated to charity, while 40% gave to a religious organization or for religious reasons (World Giving Report 2025).
- Africans donated an average of 1.54% of income to good causes in 2024 (World Giving Report 2025).
- Africa’s average share of income donated was higher than Europe’s 0.64% and higher than the world average of 1.04% (World Giving Report 2025).
Big number: Africa’s average donation share of 1.54% of income was the highest among continents in 2024 (World Giving Report 2025).
Table of contents
- How African philanthropy works
- Income-share benchmarks across countries
- Giving channels and supported causes
- Volunteer data and time commitment
- Country snapshots inside the region
- What organizational data adds
- Large-gift and institutional patterns
How African philanthropy works
The broadest reading of the data is simple: African philanthropy is highly participatory and heavily local. In 2024, 72% of people in Africa donated money, which is a very high participation rate by any standard (World Giving Report 2025).
That participation does not flow mainly through a single charity channel. Instead, the data shows a layered pattern:
- 55% gave money directly to a person or family in need.
- 40% gave to a religious organization or for religious reasons.
- 24% donated to charity.
Those three figures are useful because they show the shape of giving, not just the total. Direct personal support leads the way, religious giving is also major, and formal charity donations are present but smaller than the other two modes (World Giving Report 2025).
Why the mix matters
The mix helps explain why philanthropy in Africa can look different from donation systems that rely more heavily on institutional fundraising. If a large share of giving is direct or faith-linked, then the visible footprint of philanthropy may be smaller in traditional charity statistics than in real community support.
A few more numbers reinforce that point:
- 87% of African donors gave to local or regional charities in 2024 (CAF How the World Gives / World Giving Report 2025).
- Globally, that figure was 71% (CAF How the World Gives / World Giving Report 2025).
- 64% of people in Africa gave directly to people in need, compared with 38% globally (World Giving Report 2025).
That gap is large enough to be meaningful. It suggests that local immediacy is not a side feature of African philanthropy; it is a central operating pattern.
Income-share benchmarks across countries
One of the most striking African philanthropy statistics is the average share of income donated. Africa’s 1.54% was the highest continental average in 2024 (World Giving Report 2025). The continent also outpaced Europe, where the average was 0.64%, and it exceeded the global average of 1.04% (World Giving Report 2025).
Benchmarks by income group
| Income group | Average share of income donated |
|---|---|
| Low-income countries | 1.45% |
| Lower-middle-income countries | 1.43% |
| Upper-middle-income countries | 1.02% |
| High-income countries | 0.70% |
| World average | 1.04% |
These comparisons show that generosity does not simply rise with national income. The low-income and lower-middle-income averages are both above the world average, and both are roughly double the high-income-country average (World Giving Report 2025).
Africa’s regional spread
Within Africa, the 2024 figures show a meaningful range:
- Nigeria: 2.83% of personal income donated on average (World Giving Report 2025).
- Egypt: 2.45% (World Giving Report 2025).
- Ghana: 2.19% (World Giving Report 2025).
- Uganda: 2.04% (World Giving Report 2025).
- Malawi: 1.80% (World Giving Report 2025).
- Tanzania: 1.69% (World Giving Report 2025).
- Botswana: 1.48% (World Giving Report 2025).
The spread matters because Africa’s regional average hides a strong upper tier. Several countries are well above the continental mean of 1.54%, which means the continent’s overall number is not driven by a single outlier alone (World Giving Report 2025).
Fast facts on country ranking
- Nigeria ranked first among lower-middle-income countries on income-share generosity in 2024 (World Giving Report 2025).
- Egypt ranked second and Ghana ranked third among lower-middle-income countries (World Giving Report 2025).
- Uganda ranked first among low-income countries, with Malawi second and Tanzania third (World Giving Report 2025).
- Nigerians gave an average of 2.83% of personal income, making Nigeria the most generous country in the world by income share in the dataset (World Giving Report 2025).
- Nigerians’ 2.83% average was nearly 18 times Japan’s 0.16% average (World Giving Report 2025).
Giving channels and supported causes
African philanthropy statistics are especially useful when you split them into channels and causes. The channel data shows how people give; the cause data shows what they care about.
Where donors gave
- 43% supported religious organizations, the top supported cause in Africa in 2024 (World Giving Report 2025).
- 34% supported children and young people (World Giving Report 2025).
- 34% supported poverty relief (World Giving Report 2025).
- 30% supported older people (World Giving Report 2025).
- 29% supported disabled people (World Giving Report 2025).
These figures point to a strong social-protection profile. The leading causes are not abstract or distant; they are closely tied to family, faith, age, and immediate hardship (World Giving Report 2025).
What the cause mix suggests
A short read of the numbers suggests three themes:
- Religious life remains a major philanthropic channel.
- Human need is highly visible, especially for children, older people, and people with disabilities.
- Giving is often shaped by proximity and lived experience rather than by one narrow institutional agenda.
That is consistent with the broader donation-mode numbers, where direct support to people in need is higher than charity giving and where religious giving remains very important (World Giving Report 2025).
Religious giving, but not only religious causes
Another useful global detail adds nuance. 37% of religious givers globally only gave to causes that were not overtly religious (World Giving Report 2025). That figure matters because it shows that religious affiliation does not always equal narrow religious-only support.
In practice, that can mean philanthropy crosses from faith settings into broader community support. The statistics do not let you infer exact motivations country by country, but they do show that religious giving and secular social need are not separate worlds in the data.
Volunteer data and time commitment
Giving in Africa is not just about money. The volunteer figures show another layer of participation.
- 26% of people globally volunteered in 2024 (World Giving Report 2025).
- Volunteers gave an average of 34 hours globally (World Giving Report 2025).
- Africa’s average volunteer time was 14 hours 30 minutes per person in 2024 (World Giving Report 2025).
- Africa’s total volunteer hours were 8.2 billion in 2024 (World Giving Report 2025).
Why the volunteer figures matter
The time data is important because it broadens the concept of philanthropy beyond cash. A region can appear different depending on whether you measure donated money, donated time, or both.
Africa’s 8.2 billion total volunteer hours is a large aggregate that signals scale. Even though the average time per person is presented separately, the total reinforces that volunteering is not a marginal activity in the region (World Giving Report 2025).
Fast facts
- Money and time both matter in African philanthropy.
- Direct giving is more common than formal charity donation.
- Local and regional giving is stronger in Africa than in the global average.
- Religious organizations remain the top supported cause.
Country snapshots inside the region
The country-level income-share figures give the clearest internal comparison for Africa. Here is a compact view of the most visible country patterns in the dataset.
| Country | Average share of income donated | Notable ranking detail |
|---|---|---|
| Nigeria | 2.83% | Highest in the world by income share in the dataset (World Giving Report 2025) |
| Egypt | 2.45% | Second among lower-middle-income countries (World Giving Report 2025) |
| Ghana | 2.19% | Third among lower-middle-income countries (World Giving Report 2025) |
| Uganda | 2.04% | First among low-income countries (World Giving Report 2025) |
| Malawi | 1.80% | Second among low-income countries (World Giving Report 2025) |
| Tanzania | 1.69% | Third among low-income countries (World Giving Report 2025) |
| Botswana | 1.48% | Below the Africa average, but still close to it (World Giving Report 2025) |
What stands out in the country table
The top countries are not evenly distributed across the continent’s income groups. Nigeria leads the entire dataset by income share, and the lower-middle-income set is packed with high figures as well. Meanwhile, the low-income group also performs strongly, with Uganda, Malawi, and Tanzania all posting high income-share donations relative to many richer-country averages (World Giving Report 2025).
That is the central analytic point: African philanthropy cannot be summarized as a single national story or even a single income-group story. The region combines broad participation, strong direct support, high religious giving, and a set of country-level leaders whose donation shares are unusually high by global comparison (World Giving Report 2025).
Donation participation compared with destination
The dataset also shows that the most common form of giving is not necessarily the same as the most common destination of giving.
- 72% donated money.
- 55% gave directly to people in need.
- 43% supported religious organizations as a cause.
- 24% donated to charity.
That gap between participation and institutional charity donation is important. It means the word philanthropy should be read broadly here: direct help, faith-related support, and formal charity each represent different layers of the same overall giving ecosystem (World Giving Report 2025).
What organizational data adds
The EPIC-Africa results add a different angle because they describe organizations rather than individual donors. That makes the data useful for understanding who receives support and how African civil society is structured.
Survey scope
- 1,027 organizations responded to the funding-source question (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 838 organizations responded to the broader survey (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 548 organizations selected one or more of the individual, community-generated, or personal-source categories (EPIC-Africa 2024).
Those sample sizes are not huge by population standards, but they are enough to show clear patterns in organizational funding and activity (EPIC-Africa 2024).
Where organizations said their money came from
- 53.34% of African CSOs reported receiving funds from individual donors in their community (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 42.43% listed international NGOs among the sources of new funding (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 41.58% listed international foundations among the sources of new funding (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 29% listed bilateral or multilateral agencies (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 22.81% listed local private foundations (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 14.29% listed government (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 13.86% listed private sector or corporate social investment (EPIC-Africa 2024).
This funding profile shows that local giving matters, but the sector also depends heavily on outside sources. Community donors are important, yet international NGOs and foundations also play a major role in the funding mix (EPIC-Africa 2024).
Sector coverage by organization type
In EPIC-Africa’s thematic analysis, the leading areas of work were:
- Education: 42.15% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Health: 36.13% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Gender: 33.03% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Human rights: 32.66% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Youth: 32.66% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Children’s causes: 29.38% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Economic development: 27.74% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Democracy and governance: 18.43% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Environment: 18.07% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Food security: 15.15% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Water and sanitation: 12.41% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Disability: 9.12% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Conflict resolution: 8.94% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Emergency response: 7.85% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Arts and culture: 5.11% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Elderly support: 4.38% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Rural issues: 3.65% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Sport and recreation: 3.47% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Urban issues: 2.01% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- Community development: 0.36% (EPIC-Africa 2024).
Activity profile
The activity data is even more striking than the thematic data because it shows what organizations actually spend effort on.
- 70.80% did advocacy (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 67.15% did organizing or mobilizing (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 32.66% did service delivery (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 30.11% did information dissemination (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 20.44% did monitoring and evaluation (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 12.23% did research (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 10.22% did capacity-building and training (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 8.58% did coordination (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 6.75% did policy work (EPIC-Africa 2024).
- 4.01% did grantmaking (EPIC-Africa 2024).
This tells you that African civil society is not only a service delivery ecosystem. It is also an advocacy and mobilization ecosystem, with a very strong emphasis on public-facing action and organizing (EPIC-Africa 2024).
What the organization data changes
The organization data pushes the interpretation of African philanthropy beyond individual generosity alone. It shows that funding is mixed, that civil society works across many issue areas, and that advocacy remains central to how many groups operate (EPIC-Africa 2024).
Large-gift and institutional patterns
The large-gift data is narrower than the individual-giving figures, but it adds historical perspective.
Bridgespan found 45 large philanthropic gifts in Africa from March through December 2020 across three countries, totaling roughly $269 million (Bridgespan 2021). It also found that African philanthropists gave seven times the annual average number of large gifts during the 2020 pandemic response compared with the previous decade (Bridgespan 2021).
Historical context in large gifts
- Bridgespan identified 64 large gifts of $1 million or more between 2010 and 2019 across five sub-Saharan African countries, totaling over $1 billion (Bridgespan 2020).
- Bridgespan found that the 2020 Ebola outbreak in West Africa drew six large gifts totaling around $12 million (Bridgespan 2021).
- Bridgespan found that local NGOs received less than one out of every 10 large gift dollars granted in Africa (Bridgespan 2021).
The large-gift pattern matters because it shows a different layer of the philanthropy system. Individual giving can be broad and local, while large gifts can be more concentrated and international in their destination (Bridgespan 2021, Bridgespan 2020).
Institutional commitments and network reach
A few additional facts round out the picture:
- TrustAfrica says it has awarded US$80 million to African civil society organizations since 2006 (TrustAfrica).
- TrustAfrica says that 622 grants were made in 34 African countries since 2006 (TrustAfrica).
- TrustAfrica’s African philanthropy programming draws on a network presence in more than 25 African countries (TrustAfrica).
- TrustAfrica’s report on wealthy African giving involved almost 100 wealthy Africans and experts from southern, western, and eastern Africa (TrustAfrica / UBS).
- The UBS-TrustAfrica study focused on Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa as the primary country cases (TrustAfrica / UBS).
These figures do not replace the World Giving Report numbers; they complement them. Together, they show that African philanthropy includes ordinary household giving, volunteer time, civil-society funding, and large institutional commitments (TrustAfrica, TrustAfrica / UBS, Bridgespan).