The attitude of Ukrainian society towards charitable activity: results of a nationwide survey

Performers and partners

The study was carried out on commission from and with the strategic support of PrivatBank in the course of the project “The architecture of trust: how good becomes a force” of the Centre for Social Change and Behavioural Economics.

The survey on which this report is based was conducted by the Centre for Sociological Surveys of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine.

Technical support (access to IP telephony) was provided by the research agency Research UA, a partner of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine.

Parameters of the study

The research instrument was developed by specialists of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine and the Centre for Social Change and Behavioural Economics.

The results of the survey represent the adult population of Ukraine (aged 18 and over), excluding the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the temporarily occupied territories of the south and east of Ukraine.

The survey was conducted by computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) using a random sample of mobile numbers.

The fieldwork stage of the study ran from 3 to 14 March 2025.

For a sample of 1,005 respondents, the statistical margin of error at a 95% confidence level and a design effect of 1.1 does not exceed 3.2%.

Key findings

1. Although the absolute majority of Ukrainians (87%) fully or rather agree that it is worth taking part in fundraising for charity at present, a considerable share of the population (44%) report that they do not know of any individuals, charitable organisations or foundations raising funds that can be trusted.

2. The trust factor is decisive when it comes to declared participation in charitable giving. Among those who reported informed trust (54%), an absolute majority (52%) made charitable donations fairly often, whereas among those who do not know of charitable actors that can be trusted (44%) only a fifth (21%) did so.

3. Assessing who mainly runs charitable fundraising at present, an absolute majority speak only of honest actors in this field (57%), about a quarter speak of honest actors and fraudsters alike (27%), slightly under a tenth speak exclusively of fraudsters (8%), and the same share find it hard to answer the question (8%). Recognising honest charitable actors here matters more than the belief that fraudsters are present.

4. Almost half of respondents (46%) said they would certainly make charitable donations in the future. Slightly fewer (43%) said they might do so. The most important factor in the final decision to take part turned out, as expected, to be having sufficient funds. More than three quarters of respondents (77%) said so. But, as the analysis showed, sufficient funds are not the equivalent of the level of material well-being. In other words, charitable donations are made quite actively regardless of the level of material deprivation.

The full presentation is here.