A survey of bequest donors has ranked Port Macquarie as the second most generous location in the state, pipped only by affluent Sydney suburb Castle Hill.

The survey was conducted by Include a Charity – a bequest campaign developed by Mission Australia, Red Cross, Heart Foundation and The Cancer Council Australia.

It has revealed a rising number of donations are provided by “regular Australians” wanting to give something back to the community.

“Australians are not motivated to leave a bequest based simply on their wealth,” said Include a Charity’s Jennifer Doubell.

“Rather, we know the most likely donors are those who support or have been supported by a charity during their lives.”

The top 10 bequestors in NSW included the affluent Sydney suburbs of Mosman, Manly, Wahroonga, Belrose, Chatswood and Cremorne.

Port Macquarie, the fashionable Sydney weekender location of Bowral in the Southern Highlands and Orange in the central west were the only regional areas in the list.

Hastings Cancer Trust chair Betty Allman said she was not surprised by the generosity of Port Macquarie people.

The trust’s annual gala dinner raised close to $80,000 on the weekend and volunteers sold 10,000 raffle tickets in its lead-up.

“It just blows me away, the generosity of the people here,” Mrs Allman said.

“I was only saying this week that if there was a prize for a town for being generous, Port Macquarie should get it.”

Mrs Doubell said only about eight per cent of Australians included a charity in their wills.

“The good news is this number is slowly increasing and we hope it will transfer into more funds being raised, as people realise how important bequests are to the work of charities,” she said.

In the 2006-07 financial year, the number of Australians giving increased by 5.7 per cent.

But our country still falls behind the US, with Americans giving 2.2 per cent of their household’s after-tax income, compared to just 0.33 per cent in Australia.