Ireland

Introduction to Philanthropy Research in Ireland

By Oonagh B. Breen, Niamh Carruthers, Patricia Quinn and Niall O’Sullivan

Philanthropy research in Ireland is shaped by a relatively small academic community and an active group of practitioners and civil-society organisations. Although substantial gaps remain in the availability of reliable data, the adoption of Ireland’s first National Philanthropy Policy for 2024–2028 has created renewed momentum for research, strategic giving and stronger philanthropic infrastructure.

Academic research has concentrated on the development of Ireland’s philanthropic institutions and regulatory framework. Other areas of study include National Lottery funding, donor behaviour, giving circles, diaspora giving, transnational philanthropy and the role of Atlantic Philanthropies in Ireland. Research has also assessed the effects of philanthropic funding in health, social care, education and social justice.

Researchers are based at institutions including Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, the University of Galway, Technological University Dublin and the Institute of Public Administration. Their disciplinary backgrounds include law, economics, social policy and management.

Academic research is complemented by studies and reports produced by civil-society organisations, philanthropic funders and professional advisers. These organisations contribute knowledge on institutional philanthropy, legacy giving, nonprofit funding and donor behaviour, although their research is often constrained by limited access to comprehensive data.

Benefacts played a particularly important role between 2015 and its closure in 2021. It collected, standardised and published governance, regulatory and financial information on approximately 20,000 Irish nonprofit organisations. Its datasets enabled researchers to analyse the nonprofit sector using full-population financial information rather than relying solely on voluntary surveys.

The Giving Ireland Report relied on Benefacts data until 2021. Since then, estimates have been based mainly on self-reported fundraising income from samples of nonprofit organisations. In 2022, responsibility for the report moved from the consultancy 2into3 to Technological University Dublin.

Philanthropy Ireland, The Wheel and Community Foundation Ireland also publish research and advocate for better conditions for giving. Their work addresses topics including place-based philanthropy, entrepreneurial philanthropy, the philanthropic response to COVID-19 and the development of legacy giving.

Ireland still lacks accurate, regularly updated and publicly accessible data, particularly from the donor perspective. Information on corporate philanthropy and major gifts is especially scarce. The closure of Benefacts significantly weakened the national data infrastructure, while voluntary disclosure by funders and recipients remains limited.

The National Philanthropy Policy includes a commitment to establishing a centre of excellence for philanthropic knowledge. Combined with new charity-reporting requirements, this could strengthen collaboration among researchers, practitioners, regulators and policymakers.

Overview of Giving in Ireland

Giving by individuals

The Household Budget Survey, administered by the Central Statistics Office, is the principal representative source on household giving. It has traditionally been conducted every five years and records household expenditure, income, composition, education and housing status. Participants keep a detailed expenditure diary for two weeks, including charitable donations.

The short reporting period may fail to capture monthly, annual and irregular donations, resulting in underestimation. Since 2009, donations to churches, schools and other charities have also been combined under the single category “charitable donations and subscriptions”, making it impossible to analyse giving by cause.

The available evidence suggests a long-term decline in household participation. In 1987, 79% of households recorded a charitable donation. By 2015–2016, this had fallen to 38%. Donations represented an average of 0.6% of disposable household income, with lower-income households giving a larger proportion of their resources.

Religious giving historically represented a substantial part of Irish household donations. It accounted for 81% of recorded giving in 1987 and 61% in 2004. Since the survey categories were merged in 2009, more recent comparisons by recipient type are unavailable.

Rural households were eight percentage points more likely to donate than urban households in 2015–2016. Women were six points more likely to donate than men, while married respondents were eleven points more likely to give than other groups. Rural households gave approximately 28% more, female-headed households 15% more and married households 45% more than their respective counterparts.

The Giving Ireland 2023 report analysed the 2021 accounts of 1,037 charities and estimated that fundraised income represented approximately 10% of total nonprofit-sector income. Fundraising was particularly important for religious organisations and organisations working in philanthropy and voluntarism. Environmental and animal-welfare organisations received around 44% of their income through fundraising.

These figures combine donations, bequests, crowdfunding and corporate contributions and are based on a limited sample. They therefore cannot be used to calculate a national total for individual giving.

Ireland also lacks systematic information on major gifts. High-net-worth donors often give through intermediaries such as tax advisers, Community Foundation Ireland, the Ireland Funds or donor-advised funds. These transactions are unlikely to be captured by the Household Budget Survey.

From 2024, the Central Statistics Office committed to conducting the Household Budget Survey annually. This may improve the timeliness of household expenditure data, although no expansion of the questions on charitable giving was planned.

Bequest giving

Research and data on charitable bequests have improved significantly. Community Foundation Ireland published early studies in 2010, 2018 and 2023, examining current legacy income and the potential for charitable giving from Ireland’s growing intergenerational transfer of wealth.

Legacy fundraising has historically played a limited role in the strategies of Irish charities. It is now increasingly recognised by government and sector organisations as an important area for philanthropic growth.

Charities that filed regulatory returns reported approximately €94.7 million in bequest income for 2021. A more detailed analysis combining regulatory data, charity accounts, direct enquiries and probate records estimated total charitable legacy income at approximately €110 million.

Reported legacy income subsequently fell from approximately €101 million in 2021 to €76.75 million in 2022. The decline was associated with several unusually large university bequests in 2021, delays in regulatory filing, and slower probate and property-conveyancing processes.

At least 20 individual bequests worth €1 million or more were identified between 2013 and 2022. Together, they were worth approximately €54.5 million. This included a single estate that provided €6 million to each of five charities.

Total intergenerational wealth transfers between 2017 and 2036 have been estimated at between €150 billion and €185 billion. Charitable bequests therefore represent a substantial potential source of future philanthropic growth, although current levels remain modest relative to the wealth expected to pass between generations.

In 2022, organisations working for domestic public and social benefit received €25.64 million in bequests, representing 33.41% of the total. Religious organisations received €22.06 million, or 28.74%, while health organisations received €14.89 million, or 19.4%.

International aid, human rights and refugee organisations received €6.27 million, while environmental and animal-welfare organisations received €5.91 million. Education and research received approximately €1.03 million, and culture received €804,000.

Since 2023, registered charities have been required to report bequests as a separate category in their annual returns. This represents an important improvement, although the regulator does not verify the accuracy of every submission and incomplete or late reporting remains a problem.

Further improvements are expected from the Charities (Amendment) Act 2024, which introduces more standardised financial reporting requirements. However, some information relating to private charitable trusts, educational charities and other entities remains outside the public domain.

Corporate giving

Ireland has no comprehensive or regularly repeated national dataset on corporate philanthropy. Corporate contributions are often combined with other forms of fundraising in the accounts of recipient organisations, making it impossible to isolate donations from companies.

Fewer than five independently incorporated corporate foundations were identified in 2021. Published information for three of these organisations showed combined turnover of less than €1 million in 2020. These figures exclude giving programmes operated directly by companies and the Irish divisions of multinational corporations.

Corporate support commonly takes the form of foundations, payroll-giving programmes, sponsorships, matched employee donations, volunteering schemes and in-kind assistance. Most companies do not publish standardised financial information on these activities and instead present them within broader sustainability, corporate responsibility or ESG reporting.

Business in the Community Ireland previously surveyed its member companies. Its final report estimated that participating businesses donated approximately €13.5 million in 2019. However, the survey covered only a small part of the Irish corporate sector.

Corporate philanthropy may be more extensive than the published figures suggest. Companies participate in employee match-funding, retail collection campaigns, staff volunteering and in-kind support, but these contributions are not centrally recorded.

The lack of standardised corporate reporting prevents a reliable estimate of the total value, beneficiaries or causes supported by businesses in Ireland.

Foundations

Irish law does not recognise “foundation” as a distinct legal form. Organisations using the term may be established as trusts, companies or unincorporated associations and are regulated in the same way as other charities.

Benefacts developed a classification system to identify and distinguish private grantmakers, fundraising organisations, family foundations, corporate foundations, charitable trusts and philanthropic intermediaries.

Its 2021 analysis identified 159 private grantmaking organisations and 456 fundraising organisations. Compared with countries of a similar population size, Ireland’s institutional philanthropy sector is relatively small. Ireland had approximately 159 philanthropies, compared with 7,612 in Norway and 537 in Finland.

Only 35 of the 159 identified private grantmakers employed staff, and just 14 reported annual turnover above €1 million. Most institutional philanthropic organisations therefore operated on a relatively modest scale.

The wider classification included one community foundation, four corporate foundations, 23 family foundations, 32 independent foundations, 15 operating foundations, eight philanthropic intermediaries, six payroll-giving schemes and 76 charitable trusts.

Total grant expenditure was estimated at €79.4 million in 2020, compared with €65 million in 2019. However, detailed information on recipients and supported causes was available for only €15.3 million distributed by 42 foundations.

Within this documented amount, domestic public and social-benefit causes received €4.82 million, or 32.46%. Education and research received €4.35 million, or 28.41%, while health received €1.51 million and culture €1.10 million.

Philanthropy Ireland launched an interactive philanthropy map in 2022. Twenty-four member organisations reported giving of €167.2 million over a three-year period. Social and community services received 24%, education and research 23%, international causes 18%, health 13%, and environmental and animal-welfare causes 13%.

The map is based on voluntary submissions, does not include all philanthropic organisations and combines grants made over several years. It is therefore useful for illustrating patterns but cannot provide a complete annual national estimate.

Charity lotteries

Independent charity lotteries have a long history in Ireland, but their role has declined. The introduction of the National Lottery and restrictions on prize funds reduced the viability of many charitable lotteries. Government subsidies provided through National Lottery funding between 1997 and 2013 were subsequently discontinued.

The St. John of God Foundation is the only Irish member of the Association of Charity Lotteries in Europe. Its net raffle return for mental-health projects declined from approximately €84,800 in 2019 to just over €1,000 in 2022, largely because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Small community lotteries supporting religious, sporting and local causes remain common, but there is no comprehensive public register of their proceeds. Smart Lotto, a commercial service provider working with 178 organisations, reported raising more than €3.8 million since 2012, although detailed annual information is unavailable.

The National Lottery transferred €259.5 million to the Central Exchequer for Good Causes in 2022, up from €253.6 million in 2020. These funds support sport, culture, health, social services and other public purposes. However, government departments combine lottery proceeds with general Exchequer funding, making it difficult to identify which individual grants are financed by the lottery.

Benefacts estimated that approximately €266 million was distributed to nonprofit organisations through programmes partly supported by National Lottery proceeds in 2020. Domestic public and social-benefit organisations received €110.63 million, culture received €73.74 million, sport and recreation €76.37 million, and health €5.27 million.

Because the National Lottery’s Good Causes funds are paid into the state’s Central Exchequer and allocated through public bodies, they are better understood as publicly controlled funding than as independent private charity-lottery philanthropy.

Sources of Contributions in Ireland

Ireland does not have sufficiently complete data to calculate a consolidated national estimate across all sources of philanthropy.

The foundation figure of €15.3 million covers only distributions for which detailed source and recipient information was available. Total grant expenditure by identified philanthropic organisations was estimated at €79.4 million, but not all of this could be attributed to endowment income without risking double counting.

The National Lottery figure is also not directly comparable with private donations. It represents grants made through public funding programmes partly financed by lottery proceeds and controlled by government bodies.

Ireland remains relatively generous in international comparisons, despite falling from fourth place in the CAF World Giving Index in 2014 to seventeenth in 2023. Fourteen per cent of the population volunteered in 2022, although volunteering is not included in the financial estimates presented here.

Giving in Ireland is often informal, unstructured and underreported. The loss of Benefacts, limited disclosure by funders and recipients, and the absence of reliable corporate and major-donor data make it difficult to measure the full scale of philanthropy.

Recent reforms provide opportunities for improvement. The Charities (Amendment) Act 2024 should strengthen charity financial reporting, while the National Philanthropy Policy 2024–2028 includes commitments to better research, data infrastructure and a national centre of excellence for philanthropic knowledge.

Source

Breen, O. B., Carruthers, N., Quinn, P., & O’Sullivan, N. (2026). Philanthropy in Ireland. In B. Hoolwerf & J. Vamstad (Eds.), Philanthropy in Europe: Mapping Research and Data on Donations by Households, Bequests, Foundations, Corporations and Charity Lotteries (pp. 151–172). European Research Network on Philanthropy.

You can download the full publication here: Philanthropy in Europe.