The United States is often considered the most generous country in the world. Why? Because Americans donate a lot of money. Its people, its foundations and its companies donated roughly $410 billion in 2017 -- or about 2.1% of its own GDP. In fact, the amount Americans donated was more than the entire GDP of all but about 40 countries in the world.
You could argue that Americans can simply afford to be more generous. And that if people in other countries could give more, they would.
But what if instead of looking at how much people give, we looked at how many people in a country are giving? And what if we looked at more than money -- and also counted people who volunteer their time and help strangers?
Gallup does just that -- every year -- in more than 140 countries.
In our latest survey, the United States isn't at the very top of this list. We find that the most generous countries by these metrics are Indonesia and Australia -- followed closely by the United States and New Zealand.
Regardless of which country you think should be No. 1, Gallup's latest survey confirms one important thing: You don't need to be rich to give back. Some countries where people have far less to give are among the most generous. Indonesia, Kenya and Myanmar all rank near the top.
With all the crime, war and terrorism reported in the news every day, it may surprise you to find out how many people worldwide are actively working to make the world a better place. In our most recent survey, almost 1 billion people reported volunteering their time to an organization in the past month, nearly 1.4 billion said they donated money to a charity and more than 2 billion reported helping a stranger in need.
Gallup's World's Most Generous Countries Report -- out today -- shows these people that they won't be alone in their endeavor to make the world a better place.
Read the report to find out how your country measures up.
