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Contents: National Averages | Largest Charities | Evaluating Charities | Personal Experience | Tips | Religious Stewardship | Educational National Averages: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sources (2006) $296 B:
In 2006 Americans gave over $296 Billion in charitable contributions. This includes $1.9 billion that Warren Buffett paid in 2006 as the first installment on his 20-year pledge of more than $30 billion to four foundations. About 65 percent of households with incomes lower than $100,000 give to charity, said George C. Ruotolo Jr., CFRE, chair of Giving Institute: Leading Consultants to Non-Profits. A 2003 Barna showed 80% of all households donated some money to at least one non-profit organization and 63% gave to a religious institution.
Since 1998, charitable giving has been 2 percent or more of gross domestic product (GDP) following more than two decades below that mark. For 2003, total contributions are estimated to be 2.2 percent of GDP.
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Beneficiaries (2007) $306 B:
* Total charitable giving from individuals was about $225M in 2006 and from the religion section below $100M of individual donations or 44% goes to religious institutions.
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According to several accounts, US citizens give more than double the amount of money (as measured by Gross Domestic Product)the people of the next most generous country give.
25 Largest in terms of giving (2007-8 data for Charaties and education, 2000-02 data for churches.) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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20 largest Charities - In terms of Annual Private Support (2008):
2 - Charitable services as percent of total expenses. 3 - Percent of private support remaining after surplus. 4 - CharityNavigator Score *a. United Way is evaluated location by location - Some examples: Bergen Co. NJ -2; Somerset Co., NJ - 3; Capital Area Michigan - 2; Greater Twin Cities - 3; Denver - 3; Orange Co, CA - 3; Austin - 4, Berks Co., Reading, PA - 4; Baltimore - 2; Central Mass. Worcester - 1; Orlando - 3; Albuquerque, NM - 4; King Co, Seattle, WA - 4; Boston - 2; Atlanta - 3; San Antonio - 4; Philadelphia - 2; San Jose, CA - 1;
*b. CharityNavigator doesn't evaluate religious organizations because they are exempt under Internal Revenue Code from filing the Form 990. As a result, there is not sufficient data to evaluate their financial health. *c. YMCA is evaluated nationally and location by location - Some examples: Orlando, FL - 2; Natl. Council, Chicago - 3; NY, NY - 3; Atlanta - 3; Los Angeles - 3, Houston -4 *d. Habitat for Humanity and the Boy Scouts are evaluated location by location and Nationally/Internationally.
*e. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) are evaluated location by location. Most are given a score of 2 or 3 because of high marketing and administrative costs. Note: Some organizations like the Sierra Club are not included because they are 501(c)(4) organizations and spend a substantial portion of their revenue on lobbying.
Sources:
Evaluating Charitable Organizations: You should consider how much of the money you donate goes to the causes they represent and how much is spend in fundrasing and administrative expenses. Outside fundraisers can keep up to 90% of donations for their expenses.
Info at www.give.org - BBB Wise Giving Alliance - Gives Administrative and Fund Raising Expenses
Charitable Donations: Give or Take? at FTC.gov The American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP) also rates non-profits.
Personal Experience: In a phone-a-thon for my son's prep school I got over a 75% response when calling previous donors.
Sierra Club NJ Chapter fundrasing: I've sent out letters to 14 neighbors for the American Heart Association and typically get 1 response with $25 about 3-4 weeks after the mailing. They set a goal of $60, I guess figuring I'll make up the difference; Nice trick. The Presbyterian church I belong to gives over 20% of it's budget ($475,000 out of $2 Million annually) for mission projects, 80% of that to third world countries for direct aid, schools, feeding programs, healthcare, .... Make-A-Wish: Make-A-Wish raised $14 million last year from direct mail, but Make-A-Wish direct response manager Zachary Stahmer says Google is more effective. Direct mail gets a 2% to 3% response rate, he says, compared with 6% online.
10 Best Practices to Increase Email Response Rates for Fundraising Religious Stewarship: Close to two out of every three households (63%) donated some money to a church, synagogue or other place of religious worship during 2003. That percentage has remained constant since 2001, but is somewhat lower than the number of church donors identified in 2000 and in 1999 (66%). From the above we see that total charitable giving from individuals was about $225M in 2006 and $100M or 44% goes to religious institutions. When contributions are examined as a percentage of household income, giving to religious centers represents about 2.2% of gross income. 4% of the national population of households tithe (give 10%). 7-14% of born again Christians and 14% of evangelicals tithe. Pollster George Barna writes, "Generally, the more money a person makes the less likely he is to tithe." Source: barna.org Other 501(c)(3) (tax exempt non-profits) organizations are required to file a form 990 with the IRS; Churches are not required to do this; as a consequence the data below are estimates. 2000-2002 Giving
Source: Giving among Church Denominations at GenerousGiving.org Their disclaimer: "This is a non-scientific table, not intended for republication or distribution to general audiences. It is designed only as a study aid for teachers and researchers for research purposes only. It is not authoritative and, therefore, its contents must not be cited in any published work."
Giving for Catholic, Morman (LDS) and some others comes from a variety of sources.
‡ Note: The Morman Church (Latter-day Saints - LDS) does not publish financial data, and these numbers come from other estimates. Giving per member is also a function of family size and the age at which children become members. We would expect Catholics and Morman numbers to be lower because of large family size.
According to adherents.com/:
See Also: News from the National Council of Churches
Well-to-due Church Giving Example (1999) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Yearly church finance and benevolence giving
580 from 1,000 members. 2. Cumulative % is of all giving units. Only 1/2 of giving units pledged. Average: $3,000/ pledge per giving unit In 1997 giving was $1,080/member. In 2002 giving was $1,360/member. In 2008 the same church gave $1.8M or $1,518/member.
Note: Actual collections are typically 33-40% higher than pledges because of people who don't Pledge and plate receipts from guests. Studies also indicate that roughly 75 percent of money is given by 25 percent of the people across all denominations. |
Capital campaign for a $4 M building program 3 year giving total pledges.
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Educational Giving Sources of Private Giving to Higher Education, 2006 and 2007
Top 20 Colleges and Universities in Fund Raising, 2007
Rescue Squads: Some states/communities have volunteer Rescue Squads which provide free ambulance service to hospitals funded by donations. A local one here got a 37% household response rate with an average donation of $54.
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