The lyrics of Bobby Goldsboro’s “Does anyone know it’s Christmas?” echo a troubling reality: “One-armed beggars selling pencils, but we cannot spare a dime… Save it for the parking meter or we’ll have to pay a fine.” This sentiment reflects the acute empathy deficit I see in the world today.
My understanding of charity and compassion comes from experience. For 15 years, I have led a nonprofit private sector organization dedicated to assisting communities and businesses in recovering from both natural and man-made disasters.
Today, the global humanitarian network, including nearly every NGO and UN body, is struggling with severe funding cuts. The closure of the United States Agency for International Development has shuttered hundreds of aid organizations and drastically reduced support for hunger relief and disaster assistance programs. OXFAM warns that up to 95 million people may lose healthcare access, and around 23 million children could be deprived of education.
Tom Fletcher, who leads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, states that a quarter of a billion people require aid. However, funding has fallen to $12 billion, a ten-year low, with only 20% of UN funding appeals being met. Our organization, the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation, saw a $1.5 million reduction this year for programs strengthening preparedness within the national civil defense office and local governments. Consequently, staffing and budgets at various UN agencies involved in disaster response and development were reduced by 20 to 50%, with some health and human rights agencies facing total cuts.
Research indicates a widespread decline in empathy. The Muhammad Ali Center’s 2025 Compassion Report found just one in three Americans feels compassion for marginalized groups, and 61% believe empathy has waned in the past four years. A 2022 United Way survey noted a 14% drop in empathy across the U.S. post-pandemic, most sharply among millennials.
This trend is not recent. A 2010 meta-analysis from the University of Michigan revealed a 48% plunge in empathy among American college students over 30 years, linking the generational shift to increases in narcissism, xenophobia, racism, and misogyny.
The current U.S. President personifies this alarming direction. His sway over global leaders exacerbates the issue, with harsh measures against undocumented migrants spreading like a contagion throughout Europe and other regions.
Nevertheless, a contrasting movement is emerging, surprisingly, within the private sector. Socially conscious investors and funds are growing in number and scale, willing to accept lower profits to support worthy causes like clean water access and disaster housing. For instance, the Connecting Business Initiative, founded at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit to mobilize business disaster response, has expanded to a network of 22 business groups. It has reportedly assisted in 213 crises, aided over 6 million people, and mobilized $144 million in support.
Growing up in Manila, I admired Bobby Kennedy. His words instilled in me a lasting idealism and a drive to help others, and his voice still resonates with me today.
He once declared, “Poverty is indecent, Illiteracy is indecent… We cannot afford to forget that the real constructive force in this world comes not from tanks or bombs but from the imaginative ideas, the warm sympathies and the generous spirit of a people.”
Following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, he asserted that America needed not division, hatred, violence, or lawlessness, but “love and wisdom and compassion toward one another and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer.”
How, then, do we nurture compassion? Political and religious figures can motivate us and appeal to our higher nature. Community programs like Us & Them can strengthen social bonds and create resilient communities. Schools can raise awareness and embed empathy in their teaching. Initiatives like the Jesuit immersion program, where students live alongside the poor, or Canada’s Roots of Empathy, which brings babies into classrooms, are powerful tools. Core values are shaped in youth, influenced by parents, film, and sports.
By leveraging these avenues and approaches, we can collectively combat the erosion of empathy and build a future defined by mutual understanding and compassion.
Empathy is essential to a meaningful life. It is a fundamental part of our humanity, and we must not allow it to perish.