How generous are you?
Posted on November 20th, 2008 – 6:03 PMBy Kara McGuire
This morning, I interrupted my husband’s sports section reading to ask him what percentage of our income he thought we should donate to charity. Currently, it’s a paltry percent each year — a fact I feel ashamed of given the state of the economy and how well off we are compared to many others in the community and around the globe.
Shouldn’t this be the year when I should step up my giving? After all, during recessions, giving suffers slightly.
Plus the data show we’re stingy.
The Center on Philanthropy at the University of Indiana has found that the average household gives roughly $2,200 a year to charity. Last year, my family gave just $1,355 in cash donations, and a mere $323 in household items.
According to this column from MSN Money’s Liz Pulliam Weston, the Obama’s gave just under 6 percent of their income to good causes last year. John McCain gave a quarter of his income, but his wife is an heiress.
Another interesting stat in that column suggests donating 3 percent of your total income.
That sounds like a reasonable figure, one I might not get to this year, but could aspire to for 2009.
What do you give? How do you decide?
11 Responses to "How generous are you?"
I gave plenty - I paid my taxes… Corp bailouts, extending unemployment, etc.. the government is taking over my charitable giving. When I heard that Salvation Army was unable to give presents to 16-17 year olds this year and that one toy wasn’t enough - we decided to keep the change in our pockets.
Did you see what Biden claimed in charitable giving?
I do not know what percentage of our income we give. I could look it up on our income tax returns, but I don’t know exactly where I put last year’s paperwork. Anyway, no matter what a person gives, it is very annoying that once you give to a charity, they bug you at least once a month to give more. And they keep sending address labels for us to use. How many hundreds of address labels can a person use?
I need some charitable contributions. Twelve years ago on the advice of a “financial consultant” I transferred a little over $100,000 from a 401(k) to a variable annuity. As of today, it is worth $97,500. Not too good a rate of “return,” is it? As I said, I need some charitable contributions.
I’m selfish. My favorite charity is myself. If I give to a charity, it only makes those receiving the money or gift weaker. I truly believe it.
I gave about 2.5% this year and hope to increase to 3% next year. Those amounts are still short of where I’d like to be. I try to compensate by giving my time to organizations that I value.
I gave about 1.25 % of my gross income to charities last year, 1.8 % total to nonprofits (including environmental organizations and public radio).
Ever since I bought my house eight years ago, I’ve given 1 % of my mortgage payment every month to Habitat for Humanity. It’s about $ 7 a month; on the first of each month I put $ 7 in an envelope, and then in the fourth month I write a check for $ 28 and put the cash in my wallet (I did it this way because at the beginning, I was afraid I wouldn’t have the $ 28 when the time came!). That’s been really satisfying.
I give a small amount from every paycheck to something that has come to my attention (you notice a lot more when you make the committment to give every two weeks), as well as throughout the year to favorite charities. I try to match with my values and current life events…I do find it hard to give to the Christmas charity run, however, because so much is focused on gift giving to children, which just perpetuates myths that stuff is what Christmas is about and receiving stuff is what makes us happy.
I struggle with this as well. We used to donate around 1-3 percent of our income to a (liberal) church and other various causes but I’m having a hard time giving this year with us having a second mortgage. I kind of feel we should knock that out sooner rather than later just in case. Plus my husband’s car just had a major repair and we just refinanced so our e-fund is low and needs replenishing, which will take until January to do. But if I don’t give I feel bad when I spend on myself b/c hey if I have money to spend on myself why am I not donating?
It was interesting, when I was preparing taxes returns for a local company, the people who made 40-60,000 a year donated the most. Income above 80,000? Forget it, or maybe a $100 or so. I rarely saw over a thousand dollars being donated, unless it was to a church, so I don’t know where the philanthropy people got their numbers.
We give about 6%, half to church and half to other charitable organizations. Most of that is automatically deducted from our checking monthly. That’s on a teacher’s salary plus my parttime self-employed gigs.
We currently give ~5% of our income to charities. It took a while for us to decide exactly what was most important and while we decided, we gave to a variety of charities. Now, we focus our efforts between educational charities and church. There are so many people who don’t have the opportunities that we do and I would like to do my part to improve that.
As for how we decided, giving was always important to our families and we would like to give more. Our eventual goal is 10%, which we are not currently able to do, but given the economic situation right now, we have made an effort to increase our giving.
If you’re interested in helping out charities and don’t have money but do have time, most charities are in desperate need of volunteers and may prefer that time to any monetary donation.
For those who say that giving to people only makes them weaker or that they give enough to the government, I would ask if they have ever been through a natural disaster or if they are aware that waiting time for section 8 housing is 7-12 years. I personally know people who take advantage of the system, but I also know people who truly struggle and are only able to feed and cloth themselves through the goodness of others. I would like to think that if I needed help, others would be there, which means that I need to be there now.
