Charity: Who Cares?
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Americans lead the world in charitable contributions, giving $300 billion a year to charities. Sounds like a lot right? But this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the over One Trillion Dollars needed to keep US charities in operation, more than the US government collects in taxes. The rest comes from their own assets, government support, and foreign investment. Our visual guide to giving shows who’s paying and offers some tips on how to pick a charity of your own.
For more personal finance visualizations see: WallStats.com
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86 Comments so far
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Simon 42 days ago
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Gary 39 days ago
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« Previous 1 2The United States aren’t going to be united for much longer if you morons keep dividing yourselves as conservatives and liberals. Really, people! Get your heads out of your ass. God is not on your side and your way is not only not the right way it’s also not the only way. Maybe some of you should travel around the world and really learn something instead of taking everything those fools on Fox news say as gospel. You country has been around for a couple of hundred years. The world’s been ticking along just fine without the “American way” and you would all benefit from dropping your arrogance. The reason many of those countries don’t have huge amounts of charitable giving is because they don’t leave their citizens to fend for themselves like you do which means there’s all kinds of US charitable organizations trying to do the work that in Europe family and governments do. Compare your homeless population with France and Italy and then talk. Your charitable figures are skewed by the way you treat the marginalized in your do or die society. If you want a society like that great. But why do you have to constantly criticize others in an effort to make yourselves look good in your own eyes. Grow up USA. As a country your a bunch of obnoxious adolescents.
I love graphics like this because they are provocative and stimulate conversation. I’m curious though about the “4 Tips for Picking a Winner”. If fundraisers, to be effective, are required to engage others to garner philanthropic support and donors to be good stewards and thoughtful in their philanthropic investments must be engaged, how are the following blanket statements responsible on your part:
1. Don’t make donations over the phone.
2. Don’t attend charity events.
Are you suggesting charitable organizations should sit back and wait for the phone to ring? How can you criticize inflated administrative expenses while simultaneously encouraging donors to adopt behavior which in turn results in charitable orgs adopting higher cost strategies? Is it practical to suggest donors simply pick up the phone and call? What would happen to all of these contributions if organizations stopped asking and simply waited for donors to become inspired on their own. Giving is an exchange. The steps leading to giving require an exchange.
There is some good information here. But the recommendations, in my opinion, miss the mark.
As a final note: Giving USA has also been providing valuable data on giving (annually) for many decades.