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European Research Network on Philanthropy

Sources of philanthropy

In order to get a picture of the size and scope of the the philanthropy sector in a country, different sources of philanthropy are classified. In defining philanthropy, a definition is used that is being used in the longitudinal Giving in the Netherlands study, which defines philanthropy as ‘voluntary contributions by means of money, goods and/or time (expertise), given by individuals and private organisations (foundations, corporations and charity lotteries), and serving primarily the public good’. Note that in answering the question of who gives what to whom, ‘given to organisations’ is added, because the numbers focus on institutionalised philanthropy.

Giving by households (in vivo)

Three types of voluntary contributions are mentioned, namely money, goods and time. Although volunteering by individuals is an important part of the voluntary contribution of individuals, measuring and monetising voluntary work is still very much a work in progress. Moreover, the possibilities for monetising volunteering is questionable and still very much an academic debate. Therefore, volunteering by individuals will not be a part of the figures. Also data on in-kind giving is hard to find, and has been only be included if available.

Giving by individuals also does not include any taxes that are being redistributed to non-profits serving the public good, such as church taxes, tax redistribution schemes, or percentage philanthropy practices. Although these practices form an important source of revenue for many non-profits, the voluntary aspect of these practices is missing. 

Giving by bequest

Bequests, making donations to charitable organisations by means of a testament or will, are a specific income source in the income portfolio of non-profit organisations. Acclaimed as one of the drivers of ‘the new golden age of philanthropy’, the unprecedented expected intergenerational transfer of wealth provides major opportunities for non-profit organisations. As we can only rely on secondary sources, collecting data on bequests is more difficult than for in-vivo donations.

Giving by foundations 

Despite legal differences between European countries of what is considered to be a foundation, foundation giving is defined as monetary donations from a private non-profit organisation derived from an endowment. By only including donations derived from endowments, instead of adding the total expenditure by foundations, counting donations from individuals and/or other organisations twice is prevented.

Giving by corporations 

Although this overview excludes individual volunteering, some voluntary work is included nevertheless. For corporate giving we tried to include the total contribution by a company as calculated by the LBG model – one of the most commonly used methods by corporations (see www.lbg-online.net). This includes cash and in-kind donations in addition to the value of the work hours donated through employee volunteering schemes and any management costs incurred in implementing community investment initiatives. As a distinction between absolute giving (no returns from the recipient) and sponsoring (the recipient delivers a non-monetary return) cannot easily be made, sponsoring is also included.

Giving by charity lotteries

The final source of philanthropy comes from charity lotteries. Charity lotteries are not considered to be a conduit or form of individual giving, but specific organisations donating a considerable percentage of their revenue to charitable organisations. Also, charity lotteries are considered to be private players, independent from governments or politics. In many European countries, the revenue from (national) lotteries is redistributed to charitable organisations. However, in a number of cases they are a supplement to or replacement for government subsidies. As these lotteries are not independent organisations, for the purposes of this publication these lotteries are not included.

Philanthropic goals

For the aim of creating country profiles on giving, we have at least tried to include all the potential philanthropic goals. Next, we have provided broad categories that give a functional overview of significant philanthropic goals, instead of providing very detailed categories that might be considered independent categories in themselves in one country but do not exist in another, or might be considered too small.

For the aim of the country profiles the following categories have been used:

  1. Religion
  2. Health
  3. International aid
  4. Public and/or social benefit (national)
  5. Sports and recreation
  6. Culture
  7. The environment, nature and/or animals
  8. Education
  9. Other (not specified)

Data quality

In order to answer the questions of who gives what to which charitable goals, we must first ascertain how accurate the answers to these questions really are. In other words, we need to know whether the studies that have been carried out to collect data on giving by individuals, corporations, foundations and charity lotteries actually measure what they are supposed to. Regarding collecting data on giving, this is not always as easy as it might seem. Answers to questions on giving depend on the way those questions are asked, the number of prompts and the length of the survey. Different methodologies lead to different outcomes.

Therefore, in order to make a country profile on giving, all contributors were asked to describe the background to the data that were available in 2015 about giving in 2013[1]. They included the sources of the data collection (secondary sources or population surveys), the frequency of the data collection (if any) and the most recent year of the data collection. Regarding the target populations, the description of the data quality includes statements about representativeness, their response rates and validity. They further described the questionnaires they used, the instruments for data collection and their internal validity, but also the sources of the data (sponsors), their accessibility (public or private and the costs involved for retrieving the data), the locations, availability and studies carried out using the dataset. Finally, they gave a description about the background variables included in the dataset. With the aim of assessing the data quality, we used representativeness, validity, the availability of a classification in categories of philanthropic goals and whether the dataset includes some (relevant) background variables.

[1] The country profiles contain data that was available in 2015 on giving in a country in 2013. It might be that new data has become available more recently.

Introduction to research on giving in Portugal

Madalena Eça de Abreu[1] and Ana Simaens[2]

Giving research is still relatively scarce in Portugal when compared to other countries (Wiepking, 2009), particularly when it comes to the quantification of giving by individuals, households, companies, foundations and lotteries. Despite some examples of data collected on these topics, to the best of our knowledge there is no systematic and periodic data collection. Our intention is not to be exhaustive. Still, based on our knowledge and of those individuals and organisations that we have asked for support in the endeavour of finding data, we present below examples of existing data and studies covering these topics, particularly in Portugal.

Regarding donation practices by individuals in Portugal, a few examples of studies conducted at the national or international level help understand the area of giving by individuals in Portugal.

First of all, a study developed by the Link Association and made public in 2013[4] concluded that 30% of Portuguese people regularly contributed with donations to social solidarity actions. This study compared its results with a previous study conducted by the same association and concluded that, while in 2010 46% stated that they did not contribute to any solidary cause, by 2013 this percentage had increased to 54%. According to this study, the Portuguese were “more sensitive and cooperating” with their social actions, as only 12% of the respondents said that they did not know or that had not thought about it. In terms of the profiles of the individuals, the study did not find any differences between men and women, and the most supportive ones were aged between 45 and 54 and were located on the north coast of Portugal. In terms of causes supported, the most dominant ones were: 1) children and the elderly (76% of respondents), 2) the disabled (54%), 3) patients (51%) and 4) homeless people (48%). Finally, in terms of types of donations, most respondents referred to the purchase of food (74% versus 56% in 2010), followed by volunteer work (35%), donations to street public collections (31%) and when paying for shopping (27%).

Second, at the international level, the World Giving Index (Foundation, 2014), which also covers Portugal, is another example of data related to giving to charities by individuals. According to the 2013 data, in terms of money donated to charities, Portugal ranked number 64 and scored 24%; this was compared to a ranking of 60 and a score of 27% from 2012 (Foundation, 2013). As mentioned in the report, the World Giving Index relies on a simple average of the responses from the three key questions, which are the money donated to charity, volunteering time and helping a stranger. Each country is given a percentage score, and the countries are then ranked based on those scores.

Finally, there are some valuable examples of research on the reasons for donation practices by individuals. For instance, Abreu (2012) concluded that non-religious people, although not showing a high level of religiosity, also tend to give high donations and choose both religious and secular organisations for their donations. Furthermore, based on a pool of 612 respondents, Abreu, Laureano, da Siva, Dionísio, and Alwi (2013) concluded that besides gender and age, religious affiliation, compassion, altruism, egoism and religiosity impacted on the level of the volunteerism of the donor. Along the same lines of thought, Abreu, Laureano, da Silva, and Dionísio (2015) concluded that religiosity influences donation practices, and is a predictor of donation practices. Using panel-data, another study concluded that Portuguese contributions by individuals are significantly related to the local economic cycle, i.e., Portuguese people give more if the local economy is growing (Mourão, 2007a, 2007b).

Regarding giving by corporations, a recent study intended to indicate a picture of corporate support for communities in Portugal (Casca & D&B, 2013), which is presented in later in this chapter. Other topics related to corporate charitable giving in Portugal have been covered in the literature. Some examples include, for instance, the economic and fiscal perspectives (e.g., Taborda & Martins, 2009), or the disclosure of corporate giving (e.g., Branco & Delgado, 2011; Branco & Rodrigues, 2008a, 2008b).

When it comes to giving by foundations there is some important but insufficient information. The number of foundations in Portugal has significantly increased since the 1980s (Franco & Duarte, 2009), nowadays being around 800 (Franco, 2015). A study about research foundations as part of the FOREMAP project (Franco & Duarte, 2009) shed some light on this set of foundations. In the case of the twelve largest-known research foundations surveyed, 46% of the total research expenditure, which was about € 25.2 million, was applied in grants (Franco & Duarte, 2009). Moreover, the latest EUFORI Study conducted in Portugal (Franco, 2015) highlighted that non-profit organisations, a sector that includes private foundations, accounted for 0.12% of the GDP in R&D total expenditure in 2012.

These last data refer to support only for research. Nevertheless, as noted by Rodrigues, Mota, Saúde, Vidal, and Trindade (2007) philanthropic donations for science – what the authors refer to as scientific philanthropy – is still undeveloped in Portugal, when compared to other countries such as the UK or Ireland.

Finally, we found data about giving by charity lotteries in Portugal, where the organisation that manages the charity lotteries is Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa (Holy House of Mercy of Lisbon). In 2013 and 2014 about € 542 million and € 537.1 million, respectively, went specifically to the funding of good causes and sponsorships. These were distributed in various areas such as social action, health, sports, culture and social protection, among others.

To conclude, the scarcity of systematic data collection and data available represents a great opportunity in terms of future research in Portugal. The development of a nationwide project such as Giving in the Netherlands (http://www.giving.nl/) or Giving USA (http://givingusa.org/) would be of a great importance not only for researchers, but also for practitioners and society in general.

Conclusion

Based on the research landscape, data, and data sources it is not possible to have a representative picture of giving in Portugal. In fact, the absence of a track record of quantitative data on the philanthropic tradition in Portugal has been noted before (Franco, 2015). Nevertheless, international sources such as the World Giving Index (Foundation, 2014), together with other national sources presented in this report helped us understand this area. Still, the lack of systematic and repeated data collection and data available represents a great opportunity in terms of future research on giving in Portugal. International examples, such as the Netherlands and the USA could be used as benchmarks.

Footnotes

[1] Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL) Lisboa, Portugal and Coimbra Business School | ISCAC

[2] Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL), Lisboa, Portugal

[3] The literature and studies on fundraising were intentionally excluded from this report. Even if giving and fundraising are closely related, we are interested in the giver’s perspective, irrespective of any fundraising activity.

[4] The research team did not have access to the report in due time, so the data reported here are based on http://www.tsf.pt/vida/interior/portugueses_estao_mais_solidarios_e_preferem_doar_alimentos_3517691.html, visited in 7.10.2015. According to this source, the study was conducted between 17th and 28th May by the GfK company through direct interviews in the homes of the respondents, a representative sample of the resident Portuguese population in mainland Portugal consisting of 1 021 individuals aged between 18 and 64 years old, with a proportional distribution between the different regions of the country.

Source

de Abreu, M. E. & Simaens, A. (2017) Research on Giving in Portugal. In: Hoolwerf, L.K. & Schuyt, Th.N.M. (eds) Giving in Europe. The state of research on giving in 20 European countries. Amsterdam: Lenthe Publishers.

A comprehensive profile and description of all data sources is available through the member portal.

Giving by individuals in Portugal

To the best of our knowledge, and based on a request for available data to different companies, social economy organisations and experts in these topics, there is no systematic data collection on giving by individuals or households in Portugal. One study was identified in the introduction, but the lack of more detailed information about this study or other studies in this topic has prevented us from providing any sources of estimates.

Source

de Abreu, M. E. & Simaens, A. (2017) Research on Giving in Portugal. In: Hoolwerf, L.K. & Schuyt, Th.N.M. (eds) Giving in Europe. The state of research on giving in 20 European countries. Amsterdam: Lenthe Publishers.

The country chapter can be downloaded here. The full study on Giving in Europe can be ordered at www.europeangiving.eu

Giving by bequest in Portugal

At the moment there is no information on giving by bequest in Portugal available.

Giving by corporations in Portugal

Descriptive statistics of giving by corporations

To the best of our knowledge, and based on a request for available data to different companies, social economy organisations and experts in these topics, there is no systematic and repeated data collection on giving by corporations in Portugal that goes beyond individual reporting. The most comprehensive study that we could find was conducted by Sair da Casca and Informa D&B and was made public in December 2013 (Casca & D&B, 2013).

According to this study, corporate donations in 2012 reached € 112.6 million. These donations came from about 54 500 companies, 20% of the total number of companies, representing 0.07% of their total turnover. Also, 96% of the companies surveyed accounted for 17% of the donations, while 0.04% of the companies (22) accounted for 42% of the donations in value (more than € 500 000).

In terms of the dimensions of the companies, the average donation by micro companies (under € 2 million) was 480 euros; by small companies (between € 2 and 10 million) it was € 2 535; by medium companies it was € 9 494; and by large companies (over € 50 million) it was € 157 867. Also, more than half of the donations were provided by large companies. That is to say, large companies (0.7% of those making donations) were responsible for 54% of the donations. However, the majority of companies giving donations were micro companies (86%), accounting for 20% of the total amount of donations.

This study identified a negative evolution from 2010 to 2012, not only in terms of the number of companies donating (-11%), but also in terms of the amounts being donated (-15%) and the average donation per company (-4%). Nevertheless, large companies increased their importance and about 70% of the donations came from companies that donated on a regular basis.

In 2012, 69% of the donations were made by the following sectors: Retail (25%, with an average of € 2 038 per company); gas, electricity and water (16%, with an average of € 54 246); wholesalers (15%, with an average of € 2 463); and manufacturing industries (15%, with an average of € 1 660). Services, although representing less than 10% of the donations, were the fourth sector making more donations.

The amount donated increased with age of the firms, with 58% coming from mature firms (over 20 years old), which represented an average donation per company of € 4 088. Geographically, 52% of the donations came from Lisbon (an average donation of € 5 144 per company), followed by 28% from the North (an average donation of € 1 602 per company).

In terms of the banking and insurance sectors, treated separately in the analysis because of their reporting specificities, this study revealed that 25 out of 43 reports from banks revealed donations and a union feed of € 22 615 177; while 4 out of 45 insurance companies reported a total of € 1 585 656.

To conclude, since there is no track record of corporate donations, and based on a study (Casca & D&B, 2013) that concluded that the amount of corporate donations in 2012 reached € 112.6 million, this can be properly seen as the lower bound for corporation donations.

Data sources of giving by corporations

The methodology used in the study presented above (Casca & D&B, 2013) is explained in the report. This study covered all entities or legal persons that showed business activity in each year of study (2010-2011-2012), with an average of 294 000 entities per year. All the sectors were included, except for the banking and insurance sectors. Non-commercial companies, as well as social organisations and individual entrepreneurs were excluded. In the case of the banking and insurance sectors, considering the nature of its financial reporting, we conducted the analysis separately. Data sources included an analysis by Informa D&B and data from the Ministry of Justice, IES and SICAE.

Source

de Abreu, M. E. & Simaens, A. (2017) Research on Giving in Portugal. In: Hoolwerf, L.K. & Schuyt, Th.N.M. (eds) Giving in Europe. The state of research on giving in 20 European countries. Amsterdam: Lenthe Publishers.

The country chapter can be downloaded here. The full study on Giving in Europe can be ordered at www.europeangiving.eu

Giving by foundations in Portugal

Descriptive statistics of giving by foundations

Once more, to the best of our knowledge, and based on a request for available data to different companies, social economy organisations and experts in these topics, there is no systematic data collection on giving by foundations in Portugal. An example of a study that partially addresses giving by foundations is referred to in the introduction. This lack of information has prevented us from providing any sources of estimates. In addition, one can follow the EUFORI Study for Portugal (Franco, 2015) in order to find some information on the most significant Portuguese foundations’ general expenditure.

Source

de Abreu, M. E. & Simaens, A. (2017) Research on Giving in Portugal. In: Hoolwerf, L.K. & Schuyt, Th.N.M. (eds) Giving in Europe. The state of research on giving in 20 European countries. Amsterdam: Lenthe Publishers.

The country chapter can be downloaded here. The full study on Giving in Europe can be ordered at www.europeangiving.eu

Giving by charity lotteries in Portugal

In Portugal, the organisation that manages the charity lotteries is Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa (Holy House of Mercy of Lisbon). All the net results coming from State social gaming (charity lotteries) are distributed by a list of beneficiaries, in accordance with the provisions of the Law, to fund actions of a social, cultural and sporting nature, for instance[5]. The identification of the beneficiary organisations is defined in the Law Decree 56/2006 of March 15th, changed by Law Decree 44/2011 of March 24th and Law Decree 106/2011 of October 21st. The results are channelled to those organisations for the development of activities such as health promotion and the prevention of illness and disability programs, to fight poverty and social exclusion, as well as for civil protection, social security, policing sports events, school sports and social and senior tourism. The Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa is itself a beneficiary, by reversing in favour of its social action the amount of expired prizes of Euromillions and the National Lottery.

In 2013, of the total amount wagered in social gaming, about 97.5% was returned to society, representing a total value of € 1 746 million[6]. This return took different forms, including prizes; the application of results in the pursuit of social goals; sponsorship; indirect taxes; investment in responsible gaming and the defence of the legality of the gambling market; and support for business economic activity. Of these € 1 746 million, about € 542 million (30.2% of sales) went to the funding of good causes and sponsorships. The results assigned for funding good causes (excluding sponsorships) accounted for € 539 2 million and were distributed among the various areas in the following way: a) Social action: 63.3%; b) Health: 16%; c) Sports: 11.2%; d) Culture: 4.6%; e) Social protection: 2.7%; f) Other: 2.2%.

In 2014 the amount returned to society was 96.7%, representing a total of € 1 818.3 million[7]. The amount for the pursuit of good causes (€ 534.7 million) and sponsorships (€ 2.4 million) accounted for 28.6% of the total sales, corresponding to a total of € 537.1 million. These results distributed for good causes and sponsorships were distributed among the various areas in the following way: a) Social action: € 338.1 million; b) Health: € 85.9 million; c) Sports: € 62.1 million; d) Culture: € 24.5 million; e) Social protection: € 14.5 million; f) Other: € 11.9 million.

Data sources of giving by charity lotteries

Annual Reports issued by Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa.

Footnotes

[5] http://www.scml.pt/pt-PT/areas_de_intervencao/jogos/missao/, retrieved on September 30th 2015

[6] Jogos Santa Casa, Annual Report 2013

[7] Jogos Santa Casa, Annual Report 2014

Source

de Abreu, M. E. & Simaens, A. (2017) Research on Giving in Portugal. In: Hoolwerf, L.K. & Schuyt, Th.N.M. (eds) Giving in Europe. The state of research on giving in 20 European countries. Amsterdam: Lenthe Publishers.

The country chapter can be downloaded here. The full study on Giving in Europe can be ordered at www.europeangiving.eu

References and further reading

Abreu, Madalena Eça de. (2012). Drivers of Donations Practices: Altruism and Religiosity Revisited. (PhD PhD), ISCTE – IUL  (University Institute of Lisbon), Lisbon.

Abreu, Madalena Eça de, Laureano, Raul, da Siva, Vinhas Rui, Dionísio, Pedro, & Alwi, Sharifah Faridah Syed (2013). Managing volunteering behaviour: the drivers of donations practices in religious and secular organisations. 23. Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2380085

Abreu, Madalena Eça de, Laureano, Raul M. S., da Silva, Rui Vinhas & Dionísio, Pedro. (2015). Volunteerism, compassion and religiosity as drivers of donations practices. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 20(3), 256–276. doi: 10.1002/nvsm.1526

Branco, Manuel Castelo & Delgado, Catarina. (2011). Research on corporate social responsibility and disclosure in Portugal. Social Responsibility Journal, 7(2), 202–217. doi: doi:10.1108/17471111111141495

Branco, Manuel Castelo & Rodrigues, Lucia Lima. (2008a). Factors Influencing Social Responsibility Disclosure by Portuguese Companies. Journal of Business Ethics, 83(4), 685.

Branco, Manuel Castelo & Rodrigues, Lucia Lima. (2008b). Social responsibility disclosure: A study of proxies for the public visibility of Portuguese banks. The British Accounting Review, 40(2), 161.

Casca, Sair da, & D&B, Informa. (2013). O apoio das empresas à comunidade – retrato dos donativos em Portugal 2012/2010.

Foundation, Charities Aid. (2013). World giving index 2013: A global view of giving trends.

Foundation, Charities Aid. (2014). World giving index 2014: A global view of giving trends.

Franco, Raquel Campos. (2015). EUFORI Study: Portugal Country Report. Luxembourg: Publication Office of the European Union: European Foundations for Research and Innovation.

Franco, Raquel Campos & Duarte, Inês Seixas. (2009). Portugal: exploratory overview of research foundations. In EFC (Ed.), Understanding European Research Foundations Findings from the FOREMAP project (pp. 56-83). London: Alliance Publishing Trust.

Mourão, Paulo Reis. (2007a). Charity donations and the Temporary Local Income – the Northern Portuguese case. Paper presented at the EAEPE 2007 Conference Faculdade de Economia, Universidade Porto, Portugal. http://www.fep.up.pt/conferencias/eaepe2007/Papers%20and%20abstracts_CD/Mourao.pdf

Mourão, Paulo Reis. (2007b). Portuguese public collections and the economic cycle: a seminal study. International Journal of Social Economics, 34(12), 961-976. doi: doi:10.1108/03068290710830670

Rodrigues, Sofia, Mota, Maria, Saúde, Leonor, Vidal, Sheila & Trindade, Margarida. (2007). Philanthropy in Portugal. EMBO reports, 8(7), 613–615. doi: 10.1038/sj.embor.7401021

Taborda, Daniel & Martins, António. (2009). O mecenato: uma perspectiva económico-fiscal. Economia Global e Gestão, 14, 93-110.

Wiepking, P. (Ed.). (2009). The State of Giving Research in Europe. Household Donations to Charitable organizations in Twelve European Countries. An ERNOP publication. Amsterdam: Pallas Publications.