Generating a Diverse Workforce for Your Nonprofit

Having made huge waves in headlines across the United States, the recent report “How America Gives” has nonprofits and donors alike reassessing how they interact with charity, and where charitable funding is most likely to come from.

Take a moment and ask yourself about your perceptions of who in America gives the most from before this study came out.

Would you have been mostly likely to assume that the very rich gave the most, or that the middle class and working poor gave the most? If you guessed the first, you, like many of those culling through the study results, would have been in for quite a surprise. Throughout America, those who live among the needy, who see the specific needs of others on a daily basis, are more likely to give a higher percentage of their median discretionary income to charitable causes.

In short, the study found that:

• The very rich aren’t the most generous donors. People who live segregated from the needs of others are less likely to donate to charities because they have no reason to think about it and see no significant impact from their gift.
• Tax incentives that promote giving make a significant difference in how much charities are able to pull in. Charities in states that incentivize giving reap far greater donations across the board.
• Religious giving changes the entire landscape of charitable donations. Highly religious areas tend to give more to charity, and churches, than less religious areas.
• There is an association with politics. The eight states that ranked the highest for fundraising voted Republican in the last presidential election, while the seven lowest-ranking states were overwhelmingly Democratic. See the politics of giving breakdown.
• Older women are far more generous than older men, but women are not asked to give as often as men are.* Although women make less than their male counterparts on average, for every $100 donation given by an older, affluent man, a woman of similar age, income and other characteristics donates $256.

Perhaps most importantly the study leads to the suggestion that as the nation continues to recover the cities and states with the most generous residents may be in a better position to offset unemployment and other financial setbacks.

Find out how generous your city is, and see how your state stacks up in terms of overall giving.

*This was found by researchers at the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy. Read the full findings of how women interact with philanthropic causes here.