Nice one Chronicle! On August 20th the Chronicle of philanthropy put out an interactive graph with giving breakdowns for the entire US!
We’ve got some fantastic giving breakdowns here.
What regions of the USA are the most generous?
WELL!
You’d think the south,
BUT TAKING OUT RELIGIOUS GIVING
The north east!
NO WAY!
YES!
Proof!
Furthermore!
You can break it down by town. And zip code. And there’s more! So much more! DATA WONKS -> REJOICE!
Why would one want to take out giving to religion? Giving through my church supports a multitude of positive things world wide. How many atheist hospitals have you driven by? Most were built with money given by churches. The Church gets a bum rap when it does so many positive things around the world. Giving to religion should count!
hi Mark!
Thanks for commenting. I think you misunderstood what the graphs represented. The graphs represent people giving to their place of worship, not different religions giving to nonprofits. I don’t advocate not looking at the religious giving. It’s just important to look at how the numbers change when you take out different segments of giving. Churches do a lot of good “all over the world” as you said, and this graph, specifically, is about America.
I do think that people give far more to their churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples than to nonprofits.
I have seen many hospitals, and my experience is that they are built with the money of major donors, not the money given by churches. (For example, I just looked up who is funding Mass General hospital, Providence Health & Services, and Oregon Health and Sciences University, and I could not find one church name in the roster of their major donors. When i worked in domestic violence, we got $200 a month from churches. The majority of the money we raised was given by individuals (who may have also given to their churches).