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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Simon 184 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.
You do realize that it is not a government’s job to take care of people, don’t you? Governments are supposed to let people fend for themselves, many other countries basicly require a charitable donation in the form of taxes. I don’t want to be forced to give my hard-earned money to lazy people who expect the government to take care of them, instead of saving it to give to legitimate charities, and I hardly think that makes me selfish.
Oh, and as far as the “obnoxious adolescents” comment goes, you’re the one whining and complaining and sounding like a spoiled, pampered little child, whereas I am giving reasonable replies to your complaints. Think about that.
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.
Gary: I think many, if not most people do their giving through other means. I’ve been alerted to the charities I support through 2 ways, generally; their websites and booths/information put at other public places. I’ve never been to a charity dinner, and I spent a short time working as a phone rep for a “charity fundraising”–considering it was making me $15 an hour 10 years ago as a student, I can’t guess how much the charity got. These days, I think information is easily disseminated through websites, which are a negligible cost and a good way to find a charity to support.
Well if the USA didnt treat is war veterans and homeless like scum, then maybe so many charities would not be needed.
Lets not forget most of these ‘donations’ are simply a tax dodge, and most often go back into the ‘givers’ pocket.
You example of a 30 billion donation that went to the own mans charity is hilarious.
IKEA is actually a charity… do you think they actually help people? no its a huge ‘legal’ fraud carried out because of loopholes.
Look it up, its a good example of how charity giving figures can be skewed.
You should have someone proof your copy before putting it into an infographic. There’s no excuse to have a missing punctuation mark (donors’ own charities) if you’re doing something of this caliber.
Interesting article. I had no idea that Americans were some of the top donors in the world. Even though we are one of the most wealthy nations on the earth. I considered much of our society to be greedy. Either way, donate to charities you are familiar with. Don’t just donate to a charity that cold calls you. Make sure the organization is giving at least 70% of the donation to charity. Some of you are missing the point of the article.
It’s very true–so much of what’s donated in the US is donated by the very wealthy (because the divide between have and have nots is so vast, unlike the reality in countries like Germany and France) and all of that American “donation” is really tax evasion.
If the US collected appropriate tax money from the truly wealthy instead of allowing the wealthiest to evade taxes via “donation” (even to their own charities!), then the US could easily pay for full health care, full education, and full income protection for all its citizens (and this is why the comparison between wealthy European countries and the US just can’t be made–a lot of those problems are well addressed via taxes, which fund these services for their citizens). When a growing number of your citizens are unable to access even basic health care, or your injured soldiers can’t afford to care for their ailments and won’t be served by their country because it’s too costly, or your citizens can’t afford education costs in order to find decent work, or most of the people in the country don’t even have work that pays a living wage and lawmakers don’t care to address the growing poverty rate–you need a heck of a lot of charity in your country.
I may be “missing the point of the article” by ignoring the “give only to the charities you know”, but the article is misrepresenting some important facts that shouldn’t be overlooked.