Charitable Giving

RESCUE’s Bowl-a-Rama fundraising event is here again, and Kat and I will both be bowling for the “Leader of the Pack” team of volunteers who work with dogs. There’s a competing “Rockin Bowlin Felines” team of volunteers who work with cats. Our goal is to raise $3,000 between us for RESCUE, of which we’ve so far raised $220. RESCUE is a group we’ve volunteered with since January 2002, which rescues dogs and cats from the euthanasia lists at the Maricopa County pound. It operates its own cat shelter, while dogs are kept in foster homes and boarded at Dog Days in Tempe, a boarding and doggie day care facility that has been a valued partner of RESCUE. Two of our three dogs, Fred and Otto, were rescued from euthanasia by RESCUE. Every donation helps save dogs and cats from unnecessary euthanasia–if you can give even $5, it will be greatly appreciated. You can make donations through RESCUE’s website, here. Specify “Leader of the Pack” as the team, and put Kat’s or my name under “Encourage Your Bowler” or “Referrer." The actual bowling will occur on August 2, 2008 at AMF Shea Village Lanes. In past years there have been more than 60 organizations participating, so the bowling gets divided into morning and evening shifts and the place gets packed.

Altria Group’s moving its headquarters from New York City means that it will cease supporting the arts in New York, to the tune of $7 million a year. Altria funded over 200 groups in the city and was “the most reliable source of corporate funds for the city’s dance companies, art museums, and theaters for over 40 years, consistently ranking as the top giver each year,” according to Trent Stamp of Charity Navigator, in a blog post titled “Arts Groups Addicted to Smoking."

Taner Edis at the Secular Outpost comments on a recent article by Jon Haight about the benefits of religion, including its impact on generosity. I’ve previously offered some comments on evidence that conservatives and the religious are more generous than liberals and the secular and that believers are more generous than atheists. I’ll add that I doubt that studies of charitable giving dig deep enough to uncover whether the giving is going to charities like these. Is it really being more generous if your charitable donations aren’t being used to actually do good?

Arizona RESCUE has gone through a website redesign, and the new design now features photos of our dog Otto and our former foster dog Ollie. The front page cycles through photos of rescued dogs and cats at the top right; Otto is the black and white dog with the ball in his mouth and Ollie is the bassett hound. Both can be seen simultaneously on any of the other web pages, such as the “About RESCUE” page, where Otto’s second from the left and Ollie is third from the right. Kat previously blogged about Ollie almost a year ago. Also check out RESCUE’s donation page…

Charity Navigator has issued a report on salaries of CEOs of charities for 2007. While religious charities have the lowest average CEO compensation of any category (educational charities have the highest), at the top of the religion list is Peter Popoff Ministries, which pays Peter Popoff an annual salary of $628,732. His wife Elizabeth Popoff gets another $203,029. Not bad for a phony faith healer who was exposed as a fake on the Tonight Show by James Randi two decades ago.

A Christian blog reports on a Barna poll of believers and atheists: Most atheists and agnostics (56 percent) agree with the idea that radical Christianity is just as threatening in America as is radical Islam. Two-thirds of active-faith Americans (63 percent) perceive that the nation is becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity. Atheists and agnostics were found to be largely more disengaged in many areas of life than believers. They are less likely to be registered to vote (78 percent) than active-faith Americans (89 percent); to volunteer to help a non-church-related non-profit (20 percent vs. 30 percent); to describe themselves as “active in the community” (41 percent vs. 68 percent); and to personally help or serve a homeless or poor person (41 percent vs. 61 percent). Additionally, when the no-faith group does donate to charitable causes, their donation amount pales in comparison to those active in faith. In 2006, atheists and agnostics donated just $200 while believers contributed $1,500. The amount is still two times higher among believers when subtracting church-based giving. The no-faith group is also more likely to be focused on living a comfortable, balanced lifestyle (12 percent) while only 4 percent of Christians say the same. And no-faith adults are also more focused on acquiring wealth (10 percent) than believers (2 percent). One-quarter of Christians identified their faith as the primary focus of their life. Still, one-quarter of atheists and agnostics said “deeply spiritual” accurately describes them and three-quarters of them said they are clear about the meaning and purpose of their life. When it came to being “at peace,” however, researchers saw a significant gap with 67 percent of no-faith adults saying they felt “at peace” compared to 90 percent of believers. Atheists and agnostics are also less likely to say they are convinced they are right about things in life (38 percent vs. 55 percent) and more likely to feel stressed out (37 percent vs. 26 percent).The results about “convinced they are right about things in life” is not surprising–that strikes me as the difference between arrogant dogmatism and open-mindedness and humility, and brings to mind studies which have shown that the highly competent believe themselves to be less competent than the incompetent believe themselves to be. The lack of voter registration could also be a sign that atheists and agnostics don’t think their vote makes a difference. What I find contrary to my own personal experience are the results regarding charitable giving and assistance to the homeless. From my perspective, all of the charitable donation dollar amounts ($200/year for atheists/agnostics, $400/year for believers not counting church giving, $1500/year for believers including church giving) seem quite low. I’d like to see more of the data, and see how income level and political affiliations are correlated with charitable contributions. (I previously commented on another study that found that conservatives were more generous than liberals, which also said that the religious were more generous than the secular.) I’ve found significant differences within secular groups when raising funds for RESCUE’s Bowl-a-Rama two years ago (which Kat was a bowler for last year)–my requests for donations to groups of skeptics yielded absolutely nothing from people who have known me (at least online) for years, while my request to the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix yielded well over $1,000 in donations, many from people who didn’t know me at all. (My target was to raise $3,500 for the event, which I surpassed.) I’ve heard, similarly, that more donations to the Center for Inquiry come from humanists than from skeptics, even though there are more skeptics subscribing to Skeptical Inquirer than there are humanists subscribing to Free Inquiry. HSGP, by the way, is a regular contributor to HomeBase Youth Services, a group that helps homeless youth in Arizona. Another comparison from my own experience that is inconsistent with these results is that Kat and I know a couple of homeless people by name who we periodically help out in various ways (typically not by just giving them money), yet we’re unaware of any similar activities by our extended families (who are all born-again Christians on my side). But perhaps the survey answerers were counting giving cash to panhandlers at freeway ramps or on the street, which is something I make a point of not doing, and don’t consider to be an effective way of helping the truly needy (though I have, in the past, fallen for the occasional well-told sob story from a con artist about a lost wallet, dead battery, need for bus fare to a job, etc.).

Trent Stamp of Charity Navigator points out that, rather than distinguishing themselves from Republicans Bill Frist, Rick Santorum, and Tom DeLay, each of whom played fast and loose with the rules on nonprofits, prominent Democrats in Congress are doing the same. Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, and Evan Bayh are each officers in their family charities; their failure to disclose this makes them guilty of felonies. Pelosi calls her failure an “oversight” and promises to file amended annual disclosure statements.

Matt S. at The Only Republican in San Francisco quotes from a Scientific American column by Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Society to argue that conservatives are more generous than liberals: Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks argues in Who Really Cares (Basic Books, 2006) that when it comes to charitable giving and volunteering, numerous quantitative measures debunk the myth of “bleeding heart liberals” and “heartless conservatives.” Conservatives donate 30 percent more money than liberals (even when controlled for income), give more blood and log more volunteer hours. In general, religious people are more than three times more generous than secularists to all charities, 14 percent more munificent to nonreligious charities and 57 percent more likely than a secularist to help a homeless person. In terms of societal health, charitable givers are 43 percent more likely to say they are “very happy” than nongivers and 25 percent more likely than nongivers to say their health is excellent or very good.Matt says that, even though he’s not religious, he admires people of faith because of their morals, their value for community, and that “they walk the talk when it comes to generosity and tolerance.” Further, he concludes, “Faith, ultimately, is about optimism. Perhaps this is why I think it’s worth defending." He’s got a point, but Shermer’s piece is somewhat more equivocal about the evidence, observing that “Religious social capital leads to charitable generosity and group membership but does comparatively worse than secular social capital for such ills as homicides, STDs, abortions and teen pregnancies." I don’t think there’s any disputing the value of community and mutual aid, nor that the secular have had a harder time promoting those values, in part due to the fact that we are fewer in number and widely dispersed. But the nonreligious have made some very dramatic philanthropic contributions which are likely to have a much greater beneficial effect than any church tithing will ever have. ...

Radley Balko describes an outrageous case of eminent domain extortion in Port Chester, NY: With the blessing of officials from the Village of Port Chester, the Village’s chosen developer approached [entrepreneur Bart] Didden and his partner with an offer they couldn’t refuse. Because Didden planned to build a CVS on his property–land the developer coveted for a Walgreens–the developer demanded $800,000 from Didden to make him “go away” or ordered Didden to give him an unearned 50 percent stake in the CVS development. If Didden refused, the developer would have the Village of Port Chester condemn the land for his private use. Didden rejected the bold-faced extortion. The very next day the Village of Port Chester condemned Didden’s property through eminent domain so it could hand it over to the developer who made the threat. ...

Ed Brayton rightly criticizes the Arizona Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit to try to prevent Arizona from giving corporate tax credits for donations to organizations that provide private school tuition for students from low-income families. The AzCLU has previously failed in two lawsuits to eliminate the state income tax credit for individual donations to private school tuition organizations. There is no reason to believe this third lawsuit will be anything but a waste of money. As Ed points out, this is not a violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution (or the Arizona Constitution’s prohibition on state funds being used to promote religion) because no state funds are going directly to any religious organization. I support the Institute for Justice on this issue, and this is a reason I’ve never given funds to the AzCLU (though I support the ACLU Foundation). I am a beneficiary of the individual state tax credit–I annually make the maximum qualifying contribution to the Arizona School Choice Trust, which is the single most efficient charity I donate to (100% of donations are distributed as tuition payments for students from low-income families; salaries for employees and administrative overhead are paid by another private organization). UPDATE (June 7, 2007): Judge Janet Barton granted the Institute for Justice’s motion to dismiss this case, back in March. UPDATE (March 12, 2009): The Institute for Justice won this case again today in the Arizona Court of Appeals.