The Denver Foundation, an 80- year-old community foundation that focuses on the metro area, recently completed a revealing study of charitable giving in our community.
The results should make area residents proud, but there is plenty of food for thought. Specifically, there is room for metro Denver’s wealthiest to do more.
The study is especially valuable because it provides comparisons with a similar survey done in 2000, providing a look at metro-area giving over time.
The surveys found that in 2000, 90 percent of respondents reported they gave to charity and 59 percent did volunteer work. In 2005, fully 96 percent of respondents reported giving money or other donations to charity, and an impressive 74 percent said they volunteered.
Good work!
While the study doesn’t provide dollar amounts for charitable giving then and now, foundation President David J. Miller estimates total giving from 2000 to 2005 is up “slightly.” Metro-area charitable giving is estimated at about $3 billion a year.
(By another measure – charitable donations claimed as income tax deductions – Colorado is in the middle of the pack compared to other states, Miller says. One study indicates Colorado taxpayers claim about $2.4 billion in donations a year. That only tells part of the story, of course, since many people don’t or can’t claim the deduction.)
There is concern and opportunity in the responses from the region’s high-income earners. Those with the most don’t always give the most, at least in percentage terms – the foundation’s study found that people with $30,000 annual incomes give 4.5 percent of that to charity. People making $100,000 and more a year give 2.4 percent.
The study is packed with interesting stats about why people give and what types of charities they give to, but two statistics seem of particular interest to us.
National statistics from 2003 quoted in the foundation’s study found that about 83 percent of charitable giving comes from individuals. So, do your part; some big foundation isn’t necessarily going to make up the difference if you don’t give.
The study also found that 70 percent of respondents said they gave because they were asked to by someone they knew.
So, you can help not only with your own money and time, but by urging a friend or relative to give as well, especially at this time of year.
