It Pays To Be Charitable

In light of the recent happenings of the earthquake in Haiti and the generous outpouring of gifts from individuals from all over the world, I thought I'd learn and share a little what I learned about giving.  Giving of ourselves whether it be time, talents, money, or other ways for others is indeed very noble.  For the religious among us, it is a teaching we hear regularly.  This blog post is more about some interesting facts I found as well as some ideas on how being charitable can improve your business.

I learned that Americans donate more than twice as much money to charity than any other country in the world.  Americans give almost 1.7% of the country's GDP in charitable contributions.  Number 2 in the world is th UK at 0.7%. (http://www.cafonline.org/pdf/International%20Giving%20highlights.pdf)  The average American gives about 8 times as much as the average German!

Of all of the states in the United States, citizens of Wyoming average the highest average per-person tax-deductible charitable contributions at $10,000 per tax payer.  Utahns and those from Washington D.C. are in second and third place at over $7,000. (www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s0572.xls)

Millions of dollars have been donated to humanitarian organizations for victims of the earthquake in Haiti (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1629828/20100115/story.jhtml).  Organizations like the Red Cross and Unicef efficiently use less than 20% of the money donated for overhead, leaving the rest going directly to those who need it.

According the the Department of Labor, one quarter of Americans donate time to serve others (http://blog.charitynavigator.org/2009/04/one-quarter-of-americans-donating-time.html), averaging 52 hours per person per year.  That's wonderful!

The need for service is all around us.  I believe there is a direct correlation between personal happiness and service to others. 

Finding ways to give are so abundant if you just look.  Here are some ideas that I found:

• List your website on GoodSearch / GoodShop (http://www.goodsearch.com/goodshop.aspx). Businesses listed here are committed to giving a portion of sales of their goods to charity.
• Contribute to Project Linus -- giving blankets and quilts to those in need.  Over 3 million blankets have been donated to date!
• Give an option to customers to donate $x to charity during checkout.

Comments

• Interesting statistics. Thank you for sharing.
  by Jon C. on 15 February 2010 at 9:28 p.m.

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