The amount of money raised by charities in the Netherlands rose by 4.7% last year, compared with an average annual rise of 3.8% over the past 10 years, according to new figures from the central fundraising body CBF.

Last year, government grants to good causes fell by 9.6%. ‘It is unusual to see this compensatory effect,’ Rene Bekkers, a researcher attached to Amsterdam’s VU university told website nu.nl.
‘Over the past few decades, we have noted that the Dutch give less when subsidies to charities and good causes are cut.’

Sources of income
The 831 charities registered at the CBF had total income of €3.8bn last year. Of this €1.4bn was raised by the charities themselves, €1.3bn came from government, €457m from lotteries and the rest from other sources.
According to the World Giving Index 2010, 77% of people in the Netherlands give money to charity, making the Dutch the second most generous in Europe after the Maltese. The index does not take the size of the donations into account.