The surprising boom in donations

I was looking for some good news. Something that would give me comfort compared to what you see on tiggì, read in the newspapers and listen to on the radio. Good news doesn’t make news though. The dead, wars, famines, alarms make news. And it seems to live in a world on the verge of the end because it is inhabited by bad people. We.

I was looking for good news and could not find it, then I received the latest Italy Giving Report, the Report on donations in Italy, edited by Vita magazine. That too will be bad, I thought, with all the problems we have, let alone if someone starts thinking about others, making donations to those who are worse off. And yet that relationship is a light in the dark. Donations in these two years, between the pandemic and the war, have literally exploded. 55% of Italians made at least one donation and the average donation went from 61 to 69 euros. There age group in which the most supportive Italians have increased surprisingly it is the lowest, between 18 and 34 years of age, although it is also the age group with the highest unemployment and the lowest average income, proving that generosity is like courage: either you have it or you don’t you have it.

The only partially negative data is that relating to companies: here the total of donations has dropped slightly, but this is a figure compensated by an increase in the total of donations, which instead marks a +28% compared to 2020. In short, some of us will also be sad, depressed, melancholic, angry, as social surveys often paint us, but most of the people we meet every day on the street have made their own one of the most beautiful maxims of Gabriele D’Annunzio: “I have what I have given”. The beautiful people we seek are all around us.