Fewer Americans are donating to charity — and it may have nothing to do with money

[Salvador]

Gofundme cuts out the middlemen (charities.)[/Gofundme has many

There's too many scam artists who abuse Gofundme. I feel donating a bit of oneself 's time and labor is the best way of contributing to a worthwhile cause. I've done volunteer work for the National Runaway Safeline, which I know is a legit organization for the sheltering of runaways or homeless youths.

https://www.1800runaway.org/support-youth-in-crisis/volunteer/

 

[Left Coast]

A confounding variable is age: Millennials tend to be less religious than older generations, and they also give less. According to the article:

Millennials in particular give less of their income to charity than their older counterparts, the analysis found, probably because they “had the misfortune of entering the workforce during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,”

 

[Shelter]

I know it's Canadian stats, but I think it's a pertinent source.

Charitable giving by Canadians

It does offer some explanation on why religiously observant people donate more: they are sollicited more often and are part of a social network that rewards such behavior (or shame lack of generosity). It's also interesting to note that women donate more often and about as much money as men despite earning significantly less probably for the same reason religious people give more often to charity.

Perhaps that's part of why lower income people give more - they are more likely to be solicited near home, personally know people in need, etc. The article I quoted above also said that wealthy people who live in enclaves full of wealthy people are less likely to give than wealthy people who live in mixed neighborhoods

 

[Shelter]

I haven't donated on Gofundme, but I do think it's a good thing to give directly to people, at least for some of your donations. If you give in person, you don't need a website or any other middleman.

 

[epronovost]

Probably because it's easier for them to relate to and empathize with struggle and hardship.

when scarcity is a serious issue, pilling up resources together and redistributing it according to needs is the most practical and humane solution.

 

[Altfish]

Much of the giving, as you have said,was to churches. Many of them dubious to say the least - ministers buying mansions, private jets, etc. but because they are 'charities' this money was included in the figures.

 

[exchemist]

Another article to add to the discussion:
Who Gives

One of the studies it discusses did break out donations to secular vs religious organizations/charities. It found: "Finer-grain numbers from the PSID show that the faithful don’t just give to religious causes; they are also much more likely to give to secular causes than the non-religious. Among Americans who report that they “never” attend religious services, just less than half give any money at all to secular causes. People who attend services 27-52 times per year, though, give money to secular charities in two thirds of all cases."

Also, interestingly, the article says that Americans donate about seven times more than Europeans. They attribute this mainly to religion: "There are many reasons for this American distinction. Foremost is the fact that ours is the most religious nation in the industrial world. Religion motivates giving more than any other factor."

The last point is interesting. I did notice, during the short time I lived in the USA (Houston) that giving to charity seemed more a thing that everyone did and were not embarrassed to talk about than is the case in Europe. This rather impressed me. But paradoxically I also noticed a tendency to speak of certain categories of people in far more contemptuous terms than we do in Europe: low life, trailer trash, losers, etc.

I found myself wondering if the explanation of both is the USA frontier spirit tradition of individual self-reliance. So a minimal welfare state, compared to Europe, and less tax, hence more charity, but also a belief that people ought be to able to stand on their own feet and that those that don't are morally deficient. In Europe the instinct is to blame poverty on centuries of class oppression, so not the fault of the individual. Curiously, in the US the legacy of slavery did not seem - to me, during my short stay - to have created the same instinctive sympathy for the poor.

It had not occurred to me it might be to do with religious observance. How would one determine which explanation is responsible? I suppose differences in charitable giving between religious and non-religious people is one way of getting at that. But as several posters have pointed out, one would to eliminate from the stats all the giving to charities that are just the churches the people belong to, which are equivalent to golf club membership fees, really.

 

[HonestJoe]

"One factor driving the decline: Americans are becoming less likely to attend religious services or identify with a specific religion.

“Attending services is correlated with giving to religious organizations, but it’s also correlated with giving to secular groups,” Osili said.

That is a weird statement given that is directly contradicts the study results linked in the article. That states that the changes they measured in giving on the basis of religion were not statistically significant (like most other factors as it happens) and it specifically says that the impact of changing religious demographics are not yet clear.

The results seem to be vary clear in highlighting the recession of the reason for the drop in charitable giving, with recovery among the poorest being slow and thus having longer-term impact.

 

[ChristineM]

Interesting article, a bit old now and discretionary income is declining but its worth a look anyway

Are Religious People Really More Generous Than Atheists? A New Study Puts That Myth to Rest

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Also, interestingly, the article says that Americans donate about seven times more than Europeans. They attribute this mainly to religion: "There are many reasons for this American distinction. Foremost is the fact that ours is the most religious nation in the industrial world. Religion motivates giving more than any other factor."

Another factor: American social services are worse than those in most of Europe, so there's more need for charitable giving. IMO, the US relies on patronage from wealthy donors for basic things that get funded out of the tax base in many other places. I'm especially thinking of education and health care.

 

[halbhh]

"One factor driving the decline: Americans are becoming less likely to attend religious services or identify with a specific religion.

“Attending services is correlated with giving to religious organizations, but it’s also correlated with giving to secular groups,” Osili said.

Giving to charity is, of course, a core belief for many of the world’s major religions. And very religious people of any faith are more likely to give to charity, one study by Baylor University researchers found.

But there are fewer very religious people than ever in the U.S. The share of the population who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” is now at 26%, up from 17% in 2009, according to 2018 and 2019 surveys by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan “fact tank” in Washington, D.C."

...Essentially, society losing religion does indeed show some negative effects.

Fewer Americans are donating to charity — and it may have nothing to do with money

Perhaps someone pointed it out, but of course among those including in that survey as the "nones" -- Religiously Unaffiliated -- are many who believe in God but not in "religion", by which they mean the versions of church they personally encountered, often only 1 or 2 churches, and in a profound way only 1 version (even if in more than one denomination).

There are at least hundreds of clearly distinct versions of church, but in a way there are only 2 versions: those that actually do what Christ said, welcoming the foreigner and loving all their neighbors (instead of only a selected group of preferred people), and those that don't do what Christ said, which is also very common, and millions experienced these churches of 'Christianity' without following Christ by doing as He said, and left.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I honestly wouldn't be too surprised to find that less religious people give less to charity. The religious are in the habit of giving, because the church has a standing expectation (that is described as not an expectation) that the parishioners will give to support it. I would think it literally becomes a habit to give your money away thusly. And the religious have their pastors, and one another in their ears, speaking on the message to be charitable and giving. Non-religious people who have no such services likely develop such habits less often. It doesn't seem like any great mystery.

Now, the real question I have is, is this genuinely a "bad" thing? Who is it bad for? Who is it good for? What is the net effect? Obviously you could say it is "bad" for the charities, or those who the charities benefit - though some of those charities' very existence likely acts as an "enabler" of sorts in certain situations. Certainly not medical ones, obviously, but it is standard practice to warn against "feeding bears" for a reason.

And this survey could never account for the direct modes of help that non-religious people may give out to others.

• My wife and I, for example, took in a 19 year old girl and her 1.5 year old temporarily when she got kicked out of her uber-religious mother's home because she refused to have an exorcism performed on her. We helped them out with rides and meals for 3 months, and then she was able to get on her feet and move along.
• My wife used to take muffins to a downtown event held every weekend for those in need to get food and warm supplies for the winter - she wore an apron that read "free hugs."
• We just recently (at Thanksgiving) tracked down and invited a homeless man we knew lived nearby to our house for Thanksgiving. But alas, the day before he wrote a Bible verse down on a piece of a pizza box and stuffed it in our mailbox. Something about admonishments against being "boastful." I took this to mean that he had interpreted our invitation to be some sort of attempt to lord-over him the fact that we weren't homeless or something. I have no idea, but he didn't show.

In my opinion, direct help is better. I don't like the thought of my dollars going to the overhead and advertising/PR-campaigning of the big charities, and I certainly don't like my money going to churches.

 

[Sand Dancer]

"One factor driving the decline: Americans are becoming less likely to attend religious services or identify with a specific religion.

“Attending services is correlated with giving to religious organizations, but it’s also correlated with giving to secular groups,” Osili said.

Giving to charity is, of course, a core belief for many of the world’s major religions. And very religious people of any faith are more likely to give to charity, one study by Baylor University researchers found.

But there are fewer very religious people than ever in the U.S. The share of the population who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” is now at 26%, up from 17% in 2009, according to 2018 and 2019 surveys by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan “fact tank” in Washington, D.C."

...Essentially, society losing religion does indeed show some negative effects.

Fewer Americans are donating to charity — and it may have nothing to do with money

The study listed different reasons for the decline, not just the decline of religion.
Charitable Giving Took A Hit Due To Tax Reform
Also tithing counts as charitable giving.

 

[Sand Dancer]

A confounding variable is age: Millennials tend to be less religious than older generations, and they also give less. According to the article:

I have read that Millennials give more, but just to different types of things, like disaster relief, and they tend to give online.