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Americans' giving hits a new high
Even without a catastrophic event, we doled out almost $300-billion to charities last year.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 25, 2007
NEW YORK - Americans gave nearly $300-billion to charitable causes last year, setting a new record and besting the 2005 total that had been boosted by a surge in aid to victims of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the Asian tsunami. Donors contributed an estimated $295.02-billion in 2006, a 1 percent increase when adjusted for inflation, up from $283.05-billion in 2005. Excluding donations for disaster relief, the total rose 3.2 percent, inflation-adjusted, according to an annual report released today by the Giving USA Foundation at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy. Giving historically tracks the health of the overall economy, with the rise amounting to about one-third the rise in the stock market, according to Giving USA. Last year was right on target, with a 3.2 percent rise as stocks rose more than 10 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis. "What people find especially interesting about this, and it's true year after year, that such a high percentage comes from individual donors, " Giving USA Chairman Richard Jolly said. About 65 percent of households with incomes less than $100, 000 give to charity, the report showed. A November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation found that in philanthropic giving as a percentage of gross domestic product, the U.S. ranked first at 1.7 percent. No. 2 Britain gave 0.73 percent, while France, with a 0.14 percent rate, trailed such countries as South Africa, Singapore, Turkey and Germany. Meanwhile, companies and their foundations gave less in 2006, dropping 10.5 percent to $12.72-billion. Jolly said corporate giving fell because companies had been so generous in response to the natural disasters and because profits overall were less strong in 2006 over the year before. The Giving USA report counts money given to foundations as well as grants the foundations make to nonprofits and other groups, since foundations typically give out only income earned without spending the original donations.
[Last modified June 25, 2007, 01:11:17]
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