Consider donating your S$600 Solidarity Payment to charities in need. Data from Giving.sg shows 30% of charities saw a fall in year-on-year donations.
SINGAPORE, 13 April 2020 – Following Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat’s Solidarity Budget announcement, the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre (NVPC) released data from Giving.sg showing a drop in donations for over 30% of charities on its platform. In support of online giving, NVPC has waived its 3% transaction fee from 1 January 2020 to 31 March 2021 and urges potential donors to consider donating their Solidarity Payment of S$600 to charities in need, beyond Covid-19 related causes.
Giving.sg will also open up its suite of APIs at developer.giving.sg for non-profit organisations (NPOs) to integrate donations and volunteering features with their IT applications from July 2020. The waiver of transaction fees will also apply to all API partners.
In February this year, Singaporeans generously donated and rallied around charities that put out urgent calls for help to meet the needs of communities affected by the virus. A dedicated page, Giving.sg/SGUnited was also created to make it simpler for people to donate to Covid-19 related campaigns. An earlier report by NVPC showed that amid the challenging situation, donations in the month of February alone spiked at almost S$2.2M.
However, not all charities have benefitted equally from this surge in generosity. While total donations on Giving.sg have increased year-on-year from January to March, about 30% of charities on the platform have experienced a dip in donations, with over 90 charities seeing a fall of more than 50%. Most of these charities do not have Covid-19 related fundraising activities, but nonetheless continue to serve vital community needs. Among charities who experienced a drop in donations, the drop amounted to over S$868K.
NVPC acknowledges the importance of every charity that serves the different needs of a wide range of communities, but not every charity is known to the public in equal measure. Some charities may have been overlooked considering the Covid-19 situation, and have seen significant dips in their donations during this period.
We encourage all who are willing to use their Solidarity Payment for donations to give to a charity of their choice, and support causes that they are passionate about, whether that charity has Covid-19 campaigns or not.
If you are new to online giving, make the switch for a convenient and secure way to give at your fingertips, with the usual benefit of tax deductible donations. Visit Giving.sg to view all causes and charities available, or download the SG Cares app to get the latest updates on community initiatives, and participate in donation and volunteer opportunities. Together, let us build a City of Good and a Caring Singapore.
