There are thousands of charitable organizations in the United States, and if your mailbox is anything like mine, you'll think that every single one of them is writing you in the next several weeks. Between now and the end of the year, it is the season for charitable solicitations. Some will appeal to your holiday spirit on behalf of the less-fortunate, while others will appeal to your loyalties to your alma mater or favorite cause. Still others will remind you that, at the end of the year, you can stand a tax deduction or two. If you are like most Americans, you're likely to give. We are a nation of givers, whether that means contributing money or donating our time.

According to the Independent Sector, 70 percent of all American households contributed to charities in 1998. These families gave an average of $1075. When non-contributing households are factored in, the average gift was $754, which represented about 1.7 percent of total household income. In its most recent report, Giving and Volunteering in the United States, the Independent Sector concluded that there is "a capacity for household giving to increase further". Still, estimates of charitable giving in the United States indicate that charitable giving increased by at least $15 billion a year since 1997. More than $190 billion was contributed from individuals, and from behests, in 1999. That amount represents 2.1 percent of gross domestic product and supports everything from higher education to food for the needy.
It is no surprise that women are more likely to make charitable contributions than men are, or that those with high incomes are more likely to give than the needy. But those with incomes over $100,000 gave 3.4 percent of their income in 1995, compared to just 2.2 percent of their income in 1998. At the same time, those with incomes under $10,000, about a quarter of whom were retired, gave 5.25 percent of their incomes in 1998, up from 4.3% in 1995. This suggests that a charitable giving tax deduction, while important for many, does not determine the level of giving. Those with incomes under $10,000, after all, get less of a bang for their deductible buck than their higher-income counterparts do. Still they give.

In the United States, religious giving is the largest component of total giving. It represents $81.8 billion, or 43 percent of all contributions. A study by Canadian FundRaiser suggests that the British, Canadians, and Spaniards also give a large proportion of their annual contributions to religion, but none gives as much as the United States. Spaniards are more likely to give to social welfare causes than to religion, the British are more likely to give to medicine and health; while Canadians are equally likely to give to religion or to medicine.

Our patterns of giving suggest that we in the United States are conventional givers. More than half of our giving goes to religious organizations and to education. Our contributions to international affairs and the environment, while on the upswing, are proportionately smaller than our counterparts in the Britain, Canada, Spain and France. We give smaller amounts to the arts, and to human services and have slowed our giving to public and social benefit organizations. Do we give less in these areas because we think the government will take care of these needs? The data don't say. But our national antipathy for the poor suggests that we want to make "safe" contributions where perhaps the poor have to "qualify" to receive charity.

Charity scams may intensify our need to give safely, but careful givers have a resource in the National Charities Information Bureau. This organizations has a set of guidelines for nonprofit organizations with budgets over $100,000, including requirements that such organization have at least a 5 member board of directors with specific terms, and that 60 percent of annual expenses are used for program activities. The NCIB's online index of charitable organizations, and free Wise Giving Guide represent a resource for careful givers (see www.give.org for more information.

The data on our nation's giving portray us as, mostly, generous people. Yet the preponderance of religious giving makes me wonder how often we give "out of the box", stretching ourselves to provide special needs. In tragedy and crisis, in times of holiday and need, we see generous Americans ladling soup in kitchens, writing checks, or donating toys. With charitable giving representing just 2 percent of GDP, and 12 million children going hungry despite economic expansion, one wonders if our generosity is enough. We could give more, but we could also struggle for better social policy to restore our nation's safety net and eliminate some of our society's most pressing human needs.

JULIANNE MALVEAUX ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
NOVEMBER 22, 2000

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