U.S. Charitable Giving Facts

Do you give to charities or donate your time to worthy causes? Do you ever wonder how many other people do?

• Four out of every five adults in the U.S. (83 percent) donated money to one or more nonprofit organizations in 2004.
• The average amount of money donated per person was $1,232.
• To keep things in perspective, the average American spent $910 on restaurant food in 2002.
• The largest percentage of Americans (42 percent) gave between $100 and $1,000 in 2004, with just over 1 percent giving over $10,000.
• Estimated charitable giving reached $248.52 billion for 2004, a new record for philanthropic giving in the United States. (Less than one-half of 1 percent of that figure went to tsunami relief for the December 2004 disaster.)
• Christians (36 percent) are more likely than non-Christians (27 percent) to help a nonprofit organization each week.
• Three out of 10 Americans donate some of their time each week to a nonprofit organization other than a church.

But how do we do as a country in caring for our neighbors worldwide?

• The U.S. government now spends about $19 billion annually in development assistance. This money goes to help the world's poorest countries and regions lay the groundwork for economic growth and living standards.
• The private sector of the U.S. adds between another $6-17 billion in annual charitable giving to overseas development.
  

Our neighbors really do need our help. One billion people live on $1 a day; 2.8 billion people live on less than $2 a day. In sub-Saharan Africa, people are scraping by on just 65 cents a day.

Sources: Americans Donate Billions to Charity, But Giving to Churches Has Declined, April 25, 2005; Barna Research Online; Barna Research Group, Ltd., "Americans' Views About Poverty and Child Sponsorship: A National Survey of U.S. Adults", Spring 2003;
Freelanthropy Charitable Giving Index, cited by Association for Fundraising Professionals web site; http://www.oecd.org; Poverty Reduction, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development;
http://www.restaurant.org/research/consumer/spending.cfm; Tim Harford, Bita Hadjimichael, and Michael Klein, "Private Finance: Are Private Loans and Charitable Giving Replacing Aid?", Public Policy for the Private Sector, Note 290, April 2005.