Nearly 90% of Australians give over $400 on average to social enterprises each year.  However, according to research commissioned by the Petre Foundation: "on an asset basis affluent Americans currently give around 10%-5% percent of their net worth to philanthropy.  Their Australian counterparts seem to be allocating less than 3%".

As a consequence, total giving in Australia as percentage of GDP is lower than that in the UK or the USA.

Around 40% of adult Australians volunteer their their time to support social enterprises each year, contributing over 800 million hours of labour to the sector.  This is a higher level of paticipation than in the USA or Canada.