Cost of living meets cost of giving

Australians as a whole are generous. A recent survey shows average annual donations went up slightly in 2025, keeping pace with inflation.

But beneath those steady numbers, the donor pool is shrinking. Fewer people feel they can give, even though many still want to. 

Rising rent and mortgage pressure is a major factor. 

According to the 2025 McNair YellowSquares Survey of Public Awareness and Support of Leading Charities, nearly 40% of Australians say housing stress has reduced their ability to donate. 

As cost-of-living pressures grow, giving often feels like a luxury reserved for people with disposable income. 

So how can we reimagine the giving experience to accommodate the reality of living in today's world?

We spoke with Friendship Tree founder Adam White about the link between trust, cost of living and today’s shrinking donor pool, and why small, consistent giving at scale may be the key.

Giving in a tight economy

When asked why giving feels harder, Adam didn’t hesitate. 

“There are so many pressures on people,” he said.

“Everywhere you scroll, it’s asking you to buy something, look better, look younger, look fitter. That constant noise makes us more focused on ourselves than on our community.”

“The cost of living is also making it harder. Housing is a huge part of that. Wages haven’t kept up with what life costs. You know, in the 80s, an average home was about three times the average income. Now it’s closer to ten times. That pressure has a direct impact.”

The 2024 Demographia International Housing Affordability Report revealed that Australia’s housing affordability has shifted sharply. What was roughly a 3 times price-to-income ratio in 1987 has risen to nearly 10 times today, after jumping from about 7 times just a few years ago.

He also pointed to an erosion of trust.

“There’s a lack of trust in what some organisations are doing. You don’t always know where your money goes.

"We've experienced this first-hand by building our own due diligence system to vet charities. Because the reality is, not every charity makes it through.

"It's made me realise just how important the work we are doing is. If I'm frustrated by how few charities pass on an internal level, imagine how much more confident the public would feel if they knew which charities did?”

Why Friendship Tree champions small donations 

Despite the complexity of modern giving, Adam’s personal belief in the power of small, accessible generosity goes back decades. 

He shared a story from his younger years, when he volunteered with young people living with disabilities. 

“No matter what was going on in my life,” he said, “I’d go do that work and come home feeling incredibly lucky.

“Even though I was doing it tough financially, I always gave what I could, sometimes my time, sometimes a small amount of money. Those little pieces of good matter.”

This thinking laid the foundation of Friendship Tree. 

“We’re not saying you can only help if you’ve got a hundred dollars. We’re not putting a financial barrier in place. We’re saying tiny drops of good add up to a big puddle of good, and that puddle becomes a pool, and then that pool ripples out.” 

In a cost-of-living crisis, this matters. 

Consistent microgiving from a wide community can be just as powerful as a handful of large one-off donations.

This style of giving has become a powerful model on digital platforms.

Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Microgiving with Digital Platforms, looked at a specific charity subscription program, where sellers can automatically donate a few cents from each order. Between 2018 and 2020 in China, more than two million sellers took part, raising over 1.2 billion yuan for charity, becoming one of the country’s most successful online fundraisers. 

The study demonstrated how giving increases when the barrier to participation is low, and the act of contributing feels simple and trustworthy – what researchers call the “warm glow” effect.

Removing barriers so more people can give 

When asked what he thinks stops people from giving today, Adam believes it’s down to these three things:

1. Cost of living 

2. Lack of confidence in giving 

3. A charity sector that feels fragmented and hard to navigate or decide who to donate to

Recent research from The University of Queensland’s 2024 Survey of Australians on Giving Effectively reveals that around eight in ten Australians have reduced their charitable donations due to cost-of-living pressures. 

The study also highlights a strong desire for clarity. Australians want to know that their contribution genuinely matters, yet only three in ten people feel confident that their most recent donation had a meaningful impact. 

Nine in ten Australians are more likely to donate when a charity shows a clear, measurable impact. Eight in ten expect charities to be accountable for results. Eight in ten would switch their support to a charity that demonstrates higher effectiveness.

With rising costs, low confidence in impact and a sector that feels hard to navigate, people are pulling back not because they don’t care, but because the path to giving isn’t clear.

The solution, Adam believes, is a unified experience that brings clarity back into giving.

“The sector is very siloed. Everyone’s fighting their own battle. We wanted to build a platform that feels more like a shopfront, where you have choice, but the selections are more focused,  the experience feels good and giving is easy.

“The experience should be careful, considered and well thought through. It should feel beautiful. A lot of off-the-shelf tools have the right intentions, but they aren’t nice to look at or use. Two things can be true: you can deliver real impact and be beautiful at the same time.”

He laughed and said, “If you’re going to doom-scroll, at least doom-scroll in a place that informs you and encourages small actions that actually feel good.”

The cost of giving reimagined 

What happens when giving is stripped back to a few dollars and a few seconds?

It becomes accessible again.

It becomes rewarding and ultimately habitual. 

It becomes collective.

Friendship Tree’s model is built around the idea that generosity grows when it’s easy, transparent and when people feel part of something greater.

Even $2 contributes to your own growth from a virtual ‘seed’ to a ‘forest’ inside the app – a visual ecosystem that grows with your giving and reflects the ripple you’re creating over time.

Adam explained why this matters to him personally.

“There’s a song I love from the Manchester Orchestra. One of the lines is about how, in the end, you don’t take anything with you, all that’s left is the ripple you leave behind. 

“As I get older, that’s what matters to me. I want to be known not for who I am, but for what we tried to do. For the actions we took.”

Why small, consistent giving is powerful 

While large donations remain important, a broad base of everyday givers:

• Keeps charities resilient during economic downturns
• Spreads financial responsibility across more people
• Makes generosity feel achievable for anyone, not just high-income households
• Fosters long-term engagement and trust

This is why Friendship Tree invests in both microgiving and the next frontier: workplace giving.

“Only a small number of employees in big corporations actually give through workplace programs,” Adam explained. “It’s not because they don’t want to give, there’s a connection issue.”

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare revealed in a 2025 article, “Over 60% of large organisations in Australia have a giving program but the rate of uptake is below 5% overall.”

Adam shared, “We’re trying to solve that. It’s like a blind date. You know two beautiful humans who should be introduced. 

“We're the ones creating that connection – we give workplaces a simple tool to use, and each individual in their business the ability to choose the causes that mean the most to them. It's a win-win.”

Making generosity inherent again 

Friendship Tree exists to rebuild confidence in systems, in charities and in the goodness of others.

It makes giving:

• Clean 
• Simple 
• Trustworthy
• Beautiful to use
• Accessible at any amount

The platform fills the funding gap between government support at one end and large philanthropic donations at the other, a wide space where most everyday needs actually sit.

As Adam put it, “There’s this gap of causes in the middle that the wealthy and the government are not reaching. We’re trying to bring everyone together to help fill that gap and make it flourish.”

Cost-of-living pressures aren’t going anywhere. But generosity doesn’t have to disappear with them.

Small donations still carry power.

Community still carries power.

Trust carries the most power of all.

Friendship Tree makes giving feel human, easy and worth doing again.