Gallup: Australia, Indonesia top U.S. as 'most generous' nation

Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Indonesia, Australia, the United States and New Zealand were declared Wednesday the world's most generous countries in an annual study by pollster Gallup.

Gallup released its "Most Generous Countries" list for 2018. Indonesia and Australia tied for the top spot, and the United States and New Zealand tied for third.

To rank more than 140 nations in its wide-ranging survey, Gallup said it examined which gave the most volunteer time, how many gave per its population and which helps strangers most often. Indonesia and Australia were given a score of 59. The United States and New Zealand tied for third place with a score of 58.

"In our most recent survey, almost one 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 two billion reported helping a stranger in need," Gallup wrote in its findings.

As far as monetary donations, though, the report said no one beats the United States -- and it's not even close. Gallup said U.S. donations totaled about $410 billion -- from individuals, foundations and companies -- which is more than the gross domestic products of all but 40 of the world's countries.

"You could argue that Americans can simply afford to be more generous," the report states.

Myanmar topped all countries when it came to giving to a charitable organization. The report said 88 percent of its citizens did so. Indonesia ranked first for citizens most likely to give time to a charitable nonprofit (53 percent).

War-torn Yemen was ranked the least giving country, with a score of 15. The Palestinian Territories, Greece and China were rated next-to-last with a score of 17. China has the world's second-largest economy.

The report acknowledged, though, that Chinese citizens faced restrictions in charitable donations -- limits that have recently been eased. Gallup said China's civic engagement index score is four points higher than it was in 2015.

Gallup said it polled 153,000 adults in 146 nations to compile the report.

"The questions measure residents' responsibility to the communities they live in and help governments, businesses and organizations better understand the population of potential volunteers," it wrote.

Worldwide, the report found that 18 percent of adults said they were willing to give their time. Twenty-seven percent said they were willing to give money, and 43 percent said they would help a stranger in need.