DP50 NGO donations and support for government aid in Australia

This paper is an update of our previous research on NGO donations and support for ODA in Australia. It uses more recent and more accurate data, and we believe its findings to be improved. The paper reports on research in which electorate-level data about donations to Australian aid NGOs were combined with survey data on support for government aid, census sociodemographic data and election results. The combination of these datasets allows analysis of the traits associated with giving to NGOs alongside the traits associated with support for government aid. This comparison provides answers to questions about the types of attributes associated with donations to NGOs. It also allows us to test whether NGO support is associated with support for government aid. The central finding of the paper is that parts of Australia where donations to NGOs are highest tend to be places where support for government aid is highest too. However, the correlation is far from perfect and the traits associated with NGO donations differ somewhat from those associated with support for government aid. Notably, income, and centre left and centre right political views, have effects on NGO donations that are the opposite of those they have on support for government aid. Other traits, however, have similar effects on both NGO donations and support for government aid. In particular, Green party support and education are both positively associated with support for more government aid and higher donations, while religion is negatively associated with both.