each year the Charities Aid Foundation
releases the world giving index which
ranks countries based on how charitable
their populations are so which countries
have the most generous populations while
ranking third on the 2016 world giving
index is Australia as a developed
high-income country Australians tend to
surpass most of the world in charity and
regularly rank alongside their neighbor
New Zealand most often donations are
sent to humanitarian services
particularly helping those with health
issues and disabilities contributing to
medical research and community service
roughly a third of donations are to
organizations like the Red Cross
additionally statistics show that
Australians tend to give more as they
get older which is also generally true
around the world the second most
charitable country is the United States
roughly 63 percent of the population
claims to donate money to charity on a
regular basis with nearly three-quarters
of those surveyed saying they had
recently helped a stranger in fact
helping a stranger is the most common
way to be charitable worldwide and while
the survey showed that Americans are
actually helping strangers at a three
percent lower rate than in the previous
year volunteering has jumped two percent
additionally in terms of total donations
the u.s. gives more and more each year
between 2010 and 2015 GDP rose at a rate
of about 2% while charitable giving rose
at 3.6 percent and in 2015 Americans
donated in total roughly 373 billion
dollars in particular net high worth
households primarily donate to education
basic needs organizations arts funding
health and religious institutions but
perhaps the most interesting model for
charitable giving and the number one
spot on the list is the tiny country of
Myanmar its population is poor with a
per capita GDP of just $1,200
to compare the United States per capita
GDP is closer to 56,000 dollars yet over
the past five years Myanmar has on
average ranked higher than any other
country in the world by a huge margin in
charitable giving more than nine out of
ten people in Myanmar recently donated
money and both volunteering and helping
strangers went up from the previous year
the reason Myanmar is so charitable
largely has two
with religion between 80 and 90 percent
of the people in Myanmar practice a
branch of Buddhism called tera vaada
within this branch is an important
practice called Sangha dawna loosely
meaning giving to a community it is
believed that this giving will influence
and improve the givers chances of having
a better life when they are reincarnated
another aspect of this belief system
this giving is coupled with a monastic
lifestyle with few luxuries generally
encouraging followers to donate whatever
they have whenever they can be it money
possessions or time although there is
plenty of conflict around the world
globally charitable giving has increased
over the previous few years some
countries ranked highly due to cultural
priorities others do well in the face of
extreme adversity countries like Libya
and Syria may be dealing with violent
conflict but have also seen huge numbers
of people helping each other and
donating what little they have to others
2016 was the first time in the world
giving indexes history where the survey
showed that more than half of people
globally had recently helped stranger
pointing to the growing globalization
and interconnection of the 21st century
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so where are the biggest donations
actually coming from and from whom you
can learn more about philanthropy and
its value here
while Bill Gates is perhaps the
best-known philanthropist he is not the
most generous it is in fact business
magnate Warren Buffett he began the
recent trend of donating the bulk of
one's entire fortunes to charity in 2006
Buffett pledged nearly all of his then
forty four billion dollar estate to the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation thanks
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