Who gives the most to charity?

September 7, 2005 12:19 PM

Could you point me to statistics about who gives to charity? Specifically correlated with political parties, income, race, and religious status? I'm looking for statistics, not opinions.
posted by callmejay to Society & Culture (8 answers total)

You'll probably have to specify what constitutes a "charity" as I suspect that many religious individuals tithe to charity organizations that are religiously affiliated.
posted by trey at 12:23 PM on September 7, 2005

Hmm. Google for "irs charitable giving statistics", hit "I Feel Lucky", and bingo: National Center for Charitable Statistics.

That wasn't so hard, was it?
posted by jellicle at 12:47 PM on September 7, 2005

Response by poster: No harder than being polite would be, I guess. I didn't think to include "irs" or use "charitable" rather than "charity." Thanks, though.
posted by callmejay at 1:43 PM on September 7, 2005

Response by poster: And still, I don't see information regarding religion, race, or political affiliation there.
posted by callmejay at 1:45 PM on September 7, 2005

Here's a few articles I found:

Charity and Age

Charity and Income

I think if you search on that site under "American Demographics" you may find more articles like these...
posted by divka at 1:59 PM on September 7, 2005

Best answer: These papers might help, although I've made a big assumption in providing US-based resources.

Harvard paper on social influences and charitable contributions (PDF)

After-life and Charitable Giving

Separability & Substitability (PDF) -- maybe not what you're looking for, but it could tie in

Factors in calculating a prediction for giving

Also, the National Center for Charitable Statistics has a wealth of information.
posted by acoutu at 3:32 PM on September 7, 2005

The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project has tons of stats on cash donations and volunteering in different countries. This table (.pdf) shows charitable giving by country as a % of GDP (1995-2000).
posted by dripdripdrop at 6:50 PM on September 7, 2005

This was referenced as a source in an Economist article on the subject: http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/.

Also, appearantly the US tends to give more of total GDP to charity than most other countries (balanced by the fact that many other countries have higher taxes and larger social welfare spending).
posted by Good Brain at 11:48 PM on September 8, 2005