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Helping UK Catholics align giving, investment and faith
A new report on Catholic generosity in the United Kingdom highlights the scale of Catholic wealth and charitable giving, while calling for greater collaboration among donors, charities, dioceses and financial professionals.
By Linda Bordoni
Catholics in the United Kingdom hold an estimated £1.2 trillion in assets and give around £3 billion each year to charitable causes, according to a new report examining Catholic generosity and the way wealth is given, invested and passed on.
The research, produced by Catholics in Fundraising, also estimates that around £500 million of annual giving goes to Catholic causes, including Catholic schools, parishes and Catholic charities.
Presenting The Catholic Generosity Report to Pope Leo XIV following the General Audience on Wednesday, the organisation’s trustees said they hoped the findings would help bring the Church’s long-standing teaching on wealth, stewardship and almsgiving more firmly into the decisions Catholics make about their money.
John Green, chairman of Catholics in Fundraising, said the report began with a relatively simple question: what would happen if the voluntary income of Catholic charities were considered collectively?
As the research developed, however, the scope of the question widened. “It’s not only how I give money to charitable causes,” Green explained. “It’s also how I invest, how my investments align [with] my faith, how I pass on either to charity or to the next generation.”
The report, he said, is ultimately about “the wealth that God has given the Catholic community in this country and how we apply it, or how we don’t apply it in accordance with our faith.”
From giving to investing
One of the issues emerging from the research concerns the separation many Catholics make between charitable giving and investment decisions.
Green said that even well-formed Catholics can approach investments primarily in terms of financial return, while their charitable decisions are often motivated by personal experience and emotional connection.
“When they make investments, even well-formed Catholics, they tend to do that with their head — spreadsheets. What return is it going to give me?” he said, adding that “When they look at their charitable giving, they move from the head to the heart.”
The report argues for greater awareness of faith-consistent investment, alongside existing environmental, social and governance considerations.
Green pointed to Mensuram Bonam, a document of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, as an example of Catholic reflection on responsible investment. The challenge, he said, is ensuring that such teaching reaches Catholics making investment decisions.
Suzanne Wheeler, one of the organisation’s trustees, said investment managers also have a role to play.
People making investment decisions frequently rely on professional advisers, she noted, yet “their faith isn’t aligned with that of the donor.”
“If they have an investment manager who’s also aligned with their faith, then it’s going to be more harmonious,” she said.
A £3 billion opportunity
The scale of Catholic giving revealed by the research is significant. Of the estimated £3 billion donated annually by Catholics in Britain, around £500 million goes to Catholic causes.
For Matt Parkes, a fellow trustee, the difference points to an opportunity for Catholic organisations to strengthen their engagement with donors.
“If you have £3 billion being given by the Catholic community in the UK, but only half a billion … is going to the Church, to Catholic charities, Catholic education,” he said, “surely we can begin to increase that.”
But, he added, the report does not place responsibility solely on donors. Catholic charities and Church leadership, Parkes said, also need to examine how effectively they work together and how they approach fundraising.
“We collectively could be doing much better than the fundraising,” he said, adding that the findings have implications for philanthropists, investment professionals, trusts and foundations, charities and Church leadership.
Beyond the “high-value” donor
The trustees also stressed that Catholic generosity cannot be measured simply by the size of an individual donation.
Parkes recalled two encounters that made a lasting impression on him: one with a donor who had given £10,000 and apologised for not being able to give more, and another with a parishioner who had given £10 and expressed the same regret.
“No matter what your scale of giving is … there is often for people a sense that ‘I wish I could do more’,” he said.
That experience, he added, also raised questions about the language used in Catholic fundraising. “We need to make sure that we’re not thinking about ‘high value’ … but we’re actually engaging the mass,” Parkes said.
The same principle applies to legacy giving, he said. A gift left in a will can be part of estate planning for someone with considerable wealth, but the invitation to remember the Church, a parish or a Catholic charity can also be extended to those with far more modest means.
Matt Parkes, John Green and Suzanne Wheeler at Vatican Radio
Stewardship and accountability
For Catholics in Fundraising, the report is not intended simply as a snapshot of charitable giving, but as a starting point for further work.
Green said the organisation is launching a series of webinars called “The Good Steward”, aimed at Catholics considering investment, giving and estate-planning decisions in the light of their faith. The initiative will draw on Catholic social teaching, including Rerum novarum and its reflection on the responsibilities attached to wealth.
In particular, referring to paragraph 44 of Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum and to the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Green recalled that “the wealth I have at the end of my life, I will have to give an account to God as to what I have done with it.”
“By bringing this teaching to the Church in this country through these webinars,” he said, “we hope that we will all be able to stand before God at the end of our lives, and that he will say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”
A wider Catholic conversation
The trustees believe the questions raised by the British research have relevance beyond the United Kingdom, and Parkes said they would welcome similar studies examining Catholic giving and wealth in other countries as well.
“The need is huge,” he said, suggesting that the opportunities identified in Britain could also be reflected in Catholic communities elsewhere.
For Wheeler, the findings have also helped clarify the future direction of Catholics in Fundraising. The organisation originally focused on supporting people working in Catholic fundraising, she noted, and the research has broadened that mission to include investment managers, funding bodies and dioceses.
“The report has confirmed it, and now it’s set the direction for us and the work we want to do,” she said.
The encounter with Pope Leo XIV, they agreed, offered an unexpected moment of encouragement.
Green said Pope Leo listened as the trustees handed him the report and described its findings. He recalled a “wry smile” from the Pope when the trustees spoke about the challenge of bringing Catholic teaching on wealth and generosity more fully into the life of the Catholic community.
“These things take time,” they recalled him saying.
Thus, for Catholics in Fundraising, the report is less a conclusion than an invitation: to reconsider not only how Catholics give, but how they invest, plan for the future and understand the resources entrusted to them.
If you want to receive a digital copy of the Catholic Generosity Report, you can write to [email protected]
Matt Parkes, Suzanne Wheeler and John Green at Vatican Radio
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