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Are we actually in the middle of a generosity crisis?

A pile of American dollar bills inside a donation box.GHI/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images" data-has-syndication-rights="1" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/gettyimages-1265277021.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100" />

Did you donate to charity in the past, but no longer do so? 

If the answer is yes, you’re not alone. For the second year in a row, the philanthropy research foundation Giving USA reported that fewer Americans are donating to nonprofits than they used to, and the total amount of giving is declining once inflation is taken into account.

Some in the philanthropy world are calling it a “generosity crisis” — fewer than half of American households now give cash to charity. Twenty million fewer households donated in 2016 than in 2000. And the money that is being given is increasingly coming from a small number of super-wealthy people.

The only surprising thing about these findings, to me, though, is that anyone would be surprised.

Why aren’t people donating to nonprofits?

One big, and rather intuitive, reason why fewer people are donating money to registered nonprofits these days is the general state of the economy. The number of donors started sharply declining right around the tail end of the Great Recession in 2010. Of households that stopped donating money to nonprofits between 2000 and 2016, most earned less than $50,000 per year.

Young people are also less likely to donate to registered charities than older people. The relationship between age and willingness to give away money makes sense — the younger you are, the fewer years you’ve had to earn money. 

The Vox guide to giving

The holiday season is giving season. This year, Vox is exploring every element of charitable giving — from making the case for donating 10 percent of your income, to recommending specific charities for specific causes, to explaining what you can do to make a difference beyond donations. You can find all of our giving guide stories here.

But the age gap has grown over the past few years. In part, this can be explained by high costs of living, student loan debt, and inflation. “Younger donors simply don’t have money right now,” said Rasheeda Childress, a senior editor at The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

But we can’t blame the economy for everything. The decline in organized religion might be the biggest factor in the decline in charitable giving. 

Religious institutions are major hubs of philanthropy — highly religious adults volunteer nearly twice as much as other adults in the US, and roughly half of them volunteer through a religious organization. A report by the Do Good Institute, which conducts philanthropy research at the University of Maryland, found that people who belong to community groups, religious or otherwise, are more likely than others to volunteer and donate money. 

It’s not that religion necessarily makes people more charitable. Community does — specifically, community where charitable giving is centered and expected. But as participation in organized religion declines, so does giving.

Beyond religion, people seem to be losing faith in institutions — the government, the media, and nongovernmental organizations like nonprofits

Nonprofits are one of the most trusted institutions in the US, but only about half of Americans have faith in them. Political polarization may be partially to blame — organizations that are colored by partisan values, like religious organizations and civil rights groups, are less trusted than nonprofits focused on more bipartisan issues like wildlife conservation. 

For Nonprofit Quarterly, Ruth McCambridge speculated that, as the gap between rich and poor gets wider, people are more likely to view nonprofits as “compliant handmaidens to an unjust system.” It’s not that people are less generous, it’s because they don’t trust organizations that cater to the rich donors they depend on, McCambridge added.

At the same time, a survey of over 2,100 adults in the US found that, of those who stopped giving to charity over the past five years, 47 percent said that they chose to stop donating because they believed wealthier households should be pulling more weight.

Historically, reaching out to small-dollar donors has not been an effective use of time for nonprofits, even though many nonprofits — particularly those in less affluent communities — depend on recurring small donations to stay afloat. Why pour energy into persuading 10,000 people to donate $10 each, when you could get all $100,000 from one wealthy donor?

“It’s almost becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Childress said. By catering to the wealthy, nonprofits are “going after where the money is right now, but they’re not growing where the money is going to be.”

The charitable tax deduction system was literally designed to benefit the rich. If you don’t earn a lot of money, claiming charitable donations doesn’t make much sense, especially after former President Trump’s tax cuts in 2017 reduced the need to itemize deductions.

A totally reasonable reaction might be, “Who cares? Rich people have money to spare. Let them pay for everything!”

But if we let rich people dominate philanthropy, we give them the power to shape how nonprofits operate. “You don’t want to be beholden to anyone,” said Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy and author of Giving Done Right. If an organization that ought to be grounded in generosity and community is visibly propped up by a handful of billionaires and corporations, it’s not a great look. 

If donors are not immersed in the community an organization is trying to serve, they’re less likely to understand what that community really needs. And centering the wealthy certainly doesn’t convince already-suspicious young middle-class adults to get involved.

How can we measure generosity if the IRS doesn’t know about it?

The Generosity Commission, a nonpartisan team led by The Giving Institute and Giving USA Foundation, has spent years trying to figure out where all the non-wealthy donors have gone. “There’s certainly a monetary giving crisis,” Childress said. But “if you look at the data, people are being generous” — just not in ways that we’re familiar with.

In other words, the apparent “generosity crisis” may not be a crisis of generosity at all. 

Measuring generosity is a bit like measuring “happiness” or “loneliness” — weird. Trying to nail down a feeling with statistics requires quantifying something that can’t really be quantified. Inevitably, the final score will be an imperfect reflection of the feeling, heavily skewed by what’s possible to measure.

Today, measuring cash donations to registered charities is relatively simple. These gifts are reported to the IRS, leaving behind a paper trail that can be tracked by organizations like Giving USA. A 2020 study conducted by the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society found that people in the US give in ways that extend far beyond tax-exempt donations to nonprofits.

These forms of giving are harder to trace, though. When I gift a guitar to my neighbor who wants to teach his kid to play, for example, there’s no official record of that transaction — just a couple Facebook comments and a face-to-face conversation. The IRS can’t trace it, so in the eyes of Giving USA, it never happened.

Mutual aid — or the reciprocal exchange of resources within a community — has existed worldwide for thousands of years. But it entered the spotlight in the US during the pandemic through community fridges, child care collectives, and healthcare funds. 

For a population that increasingly distrusts political institutions and craves human connection, mutual aid can feel more impactful than donating to a nonprofit — whether it really is or not. A survey conducted by GivingTuesday, the organization behind the post-Thanksgiving global day of giving, found that 76 percent of respondents between 18 and 34 prefer to give directly to individuals in need, and not nonprofits — only 46 percent of those over 50 agreed.

Donations raised through crowdfunding also grew 33.7 percent in 2022, with 6,455,080 crowdfunding campaigns launched across the world that year. The crowdfunding market is projected to grow to as much as $300 billion by 2030. But while a GoFundMe donation counts as “generous” in my book, Giving USA can’t track it — so, we have a “generosity crisis.”

But we know that humans, for the most part, are generous. In 2022, the Charities Aid Foundation found that 4.2 billion people — 72 percent of the world’s adult population — gave money, time, or service to someone they didn’t know that year.

Over the past several years, the Generosity Commission has been working to “tell the full story” of generosity, so nonprofits can better understand how people want to make their communities better. In a report published in September, the Generosity Commission identified several possible explanations for declines in volunteering and donations, including the Great Recession, declining religiosity, and delays in traditional adult milestones like marriage, home ownership, and parenthood — but they note that further research is necessary.

So, what should we do? 

To be clear: nonprofits do a lot of good, both in the US and abroad. Especially in smaller, less affluent communities, they absolutely depend on normal, not-super-rich donors like me — and we’re not pulling our weight.

One could argue that, because I am, temporarily, a member of the richest 1 percent of the world’s population, I am morally obligated to donate a portion of my income to charity. At least in theory, if I schedule recurring donations to highly effective charities, I could save a number of lives in nations where my money will stretch much farther than it can in the US. 

But such effective philanthropy has always been the exception — in fact, giving to international causes actually declined by 1.6 percent after inflation in 2023. The vast majority of charitable giving in the US is domestic. Most donors aren’t paying for malaria-preventing bed nets overseas — they’re mainly donating to Ivy League schools and religious organizations. Just this week, Michael Bloomberg donated $1 billion dollars to Johns Hopkins University to pay for med students’ tuition. 

If I were in med school, I’d be thrilled — student debt sucks. But med students, especially from prestigious schools like the No. 2 ranked Hopkins, generally go on to make loads of money. Helping them out is less effective than, say, sending $1 billion dollars to directly help flood survivors in Kenya

Personally, I don’t currently donate a portion of my income to registered nonprofits, highly effective or otherwise. I’m still earning back the savings I drained as a freelance journalist (after spending six years on a grad student stipend). Michael Bloomberg didn’t pay for my Ivy League education, and with tens of thousands of dollars in undergraduate student loan debt hanging over my head, I laugh every time I receive, and promptly delete, a fundraising text from my alma mater.

But I do give. I regularly support Kickstarter campaigns, gift household items to my neighbors, and donate to a mutual aid fund supporting sex workers in my community. That makes me like other “zillennials” in my cohort, who tend to direct their money toward more informal charities than traditional nonprofits. That may not necessarily count in the IRS’s statistics, but I don’t think it’s fair to call us ungenerous.

Given the current state of democracy writ large, it makes perfect sense to me that so many of us value direct, tangible impact over indirect measurements of “effectiveness.” Informal community-centered giving can feel more impactful, even if it doesn’t score as high on a utilitarian scale. And what giving within your community can do — whether in the form of cash, time, or stuff — is build connection at a moment when we need it more than ever.

Middle-class people aren’t unwilling to give. They just seem to be giving differently, and philanthropic organizations are still figuring out how to measure charitable giving beyond tax-deductible donations to 501(c)(3) nonprofits.

Whether channeled through money or not, people perform acts of kindness all the time. Hopefully, the philanthropy sector will start to see them.

A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here!

Update, November 20: This story was originally published on July 10 and has been updated to include details about the Generosity Commission’s September 2024 report.


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Jessica Mercado and her baby Messiah Diaz, both of Springfield, Mass., died from their injuries.
nypost.com
Liam Payne’s girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, arrives at late singer’s funeral
Cassidy joined Payne's other close friends and family to mourn the former One Direction member's death as he was laid to rest at a private service outside of London.
nypost.com
Bomb cyclone in Northwest causes vast power outages, kills at least 1
A major storm swept across the northwestern U.S., battering the region with strong winds and rain, causing widespread power outages and downing trees that killed at least one person.
cbsnews.com
We're About to Find Out How Much Americans Like Vaccines
Empowering Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will test one of American public health’s greatest successes.
theatlantic.com
A Ridiculous, Perfect Way to Make Friends
Group fitness classes aren’t just about exercise.
theatlantic.com
The Sports Report: Dalton Knecht can't miss as Lakers beat the Jazz
Dalton Knecht scores 18 points in just over three minutes and Lakers get an NBA Cup victory over the Utah Jazz.
latimes.com
Column: 'I just get it done': Amare Rhodes' journey from dropout to football star after brother's death
Amare Rhodes' brother Dranel was killed in an accidental shooting in 2022. His comeback after the tragic death is nearly complete at Kennedy High.
latimes.com
Trump wants a big expansion in fossil fuel production. Can he do that?
An oil pump jack on the Great Plains, southeastern Wyoming. | Marli Miller/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump had a pointed tagline for his energy policy: “Drill, baby, drill.” That statement is emblematic of where Trump is poised to focus his efforts in a second term: He’s pledged US “energy dominance” and everything from “new pipelines” to “new refiners” that amp up fossil fuel production.  This approach marks a stark shift from the Biden administration’s and puts the US’s emphasis more heavily on producing oil and gas than on attempting a transition to clean energy sources. In addition to touting the need to boost fossil fuels, Trump has disparaged subsidies for clean energy investments and called for “terminat[ing]” the funds that were allocated for those subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act. His stance ignores the role that burning fossil fuels has played in climate change and could cause considerable harm to US efforts to address the issue.  Several of his nominations are indicative of these goals. He’s chosen oil industry executive Chris Wright — a fracking evangelist — to head up the Department of Energy. He’s named North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — who connected Trump to oil executive donors during the campaign — as the lead for the Interior Department and as an “energy czar.” He’s also tapped former Rep. Lee Zeldin — who’s emphasized his commitment to deregulation — as his chief of the Environmental Protection Agency.  There’s only so much the administration can control, however. Although Trump can take notable steps to try to increase fossil fuel production, actual upticks in oil and gas extraction will depend heavily on the private sector and the economics of the industry.  Still, while Trump faces some constraints, he has significant policy levers he can pull to encourage production of fossil fuels. Wright, Burgum, and Zeldin have also signaled they’re prepared to execute on the president-elect’s vision, including changes to drilling on public lands and speedier permitting for oil and gas projects.  “President Trump and his energy team — Mr. Burgum, Mr. Wright, Mr. Zeldin — can go to considerable lengths to make expanded production attractive and relatively easy,” Barry Rabe, a University of Michigan environmental policy professor, told Vox.  How Trump could increase fossil fuel production Trump has two key avenues he can utilize to boost fossil fuel production. One, he can open up more public lands and waters for exploration, development, and extraction. Two, he can ease the regulatory processes that govern fossil fuel work. Trump could offer more oil and gas leases on public lands As President, Trump will oversee the Interior Department, which includes the Bureau of Land Management as well as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, both of which manage a substantial fraction of the country’s public lands and waters. He’ll also oversee the Agriculture Department, which contains the Forest Service, another body that has oversight of some public lands.  The Bureaus of Land Management and Ocean Energy Management, as well as the Forest Service, are the three main entities that issue oil and gas leases on public spaces. These leases effectively allow fossil fuel companies to rent parcels of public land from the federal government so they can extract resources from these areas. Once land is designated as available for lease, leases are typically auctioned off to the highest bidder. Those bureaus, and the Forest Service, have major discretion to determine if more leases can be issued and where. But the president can issue an executive order instructing them to prioritize the subject: Trump could call on agencies to make identifying suitable public lands a top agenda item, for example.  “If you have an administration that says we want everything that could be leased to be leased, there’s a lot of discretion to be able to do that,” says Stan Meiburg, the executive director of the Center for Environment and Sustainability at Wake Forest University.  Trump’s first term, during which he also made moves to expand the acreage of public lands available for oil and gas drilling, is likely a sign of what’s to come. Per a study from Science, he mounted one of the largest reductions in protected public lands in history, rolling back the acreage of Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to allow for additional oil and gas exploration in these places. Data from the Bureau of Land Management shows that there was an increase in total acres offered for oil and gas leases during Trump’s first term compared to President Barack Obama’s second term and Biden’s current term.  Though Trump could again expand the number of leases available, it’s important to note that won’t necessarily translate to more production. Leases are subject to environmental rules. That means new leases could well be challenged in court for potential violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, or other federal laws.  Another factor could limit production too: corporate interest. Companies may not be interested in these new leases since many of the parcels might not be home to fossil fuels. And businesses could also lease the land but fail to utilize it.  The White House could make expanding production easier for the private sector The second avenue Trump could pursue is rolling back regulations to make fossil fuel production easier and faster for the private sector. Much of this will involve undoing policies the Biden administration put in place — like the pause on permits for liquefied natural gas exports — and expediting federal approvals for oil- and gas-related projects.  Trump could use the executive branch’s authority to rescind certain proposals. For other rules, the White House could need Congress’s help. By utilizing what’s known as the Congressional Review Act, Congress has the ability to roll back rules that agencies have recently put in place. In other cases, it might need to pass new legislation: The EPA has just begun imposing a methane fee on oil and gas companies, and because that fee was included in the Inflation Reduction Act, it would need an act of Congress to undo. Under it, these businesses must curb their methane emissions or suffer a financial penalty.  Repealing policies like the methane fee and the natural gas export permit pause would curb the restrictions oil and gas companies currently face, creating more opportunities to export products abroad and making fossil fuel production less costly.  Another area where both the administration and Congress have power to ease regulation is on the issue of permitting reform. Currently, any oil and gas project — such as building a new pipeline — must go through many layers of approval by federal agencies like the EPA. (Many clean energy infrastructure projects also need to go through this process.) For these projects, companies have to obtain a hefty number of permits, slowing their ability to execute on these plans.  The Biden administration managed to outstrip the pace at which the Trump administration issued permits for drilling on public lands. Under Trump, federal agencies could try to further streamline such approvals, says Mark Squillace, a University of Colorado-Boulder Law School professor and former staffer at the Interior Department. “We certainly could see some efforts to pull back on environmental standards, to make it easier to permit different kinds of facilities,” Squillace told Vox.  Trump could also take executive action to direct agencies to cut as many unnecessary steps as possible and to simplify their processes. More expansive permitting reforms, like policies that put firm limits on the time needed for legal challenges and federal approvals of a project, would need the backing of Congress, however, and have had bipartisan support in the past. The combination of loosening restrictions currently placed on oil and gas companies and making new projects easier to pursue all tie back to Trump’s pledge to “slash the red tape” on the industry.  As is the case with expanding access to public lands, it’s not clear that these policy changes will result in more fossil fuel production since much of that will depend on how private companies respond. Trump can make production a little easier, but the market for fossil fuels is also a factor During the Biden administration, the US produced more oil and gas than any country in the world. Companies’ incentives to increase production will depend on whether they think it’s financially sound for them. As more countries — including the US — have invested in clean energy sources, there is more competition in the market, which could factor in to whether businesses see it as a smart move to dial up their fossil fuel output if given the chance. “As we watch a movement toward more solar and wind development, there is less demand for the oil and gas products that we’ve been producing,” says Squillace.  Though the administration has stressed that it’s all-in on fossil fuels, it’s not evident that it can turn away from clean energy investments to the degree that Trump has urged. Defunding the subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, for instance, would prompt legal challenges, short of an actual repeal by Congress.  The administration could well take some contradictory stances, too. Although Trump has long denigrated energy sources like offshore wind and subsidies for electric vehicles, his allies include Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who’s the head of an EV company. Musk is among the tech leaders who’ve attained notable influence in the administration and who also has deep ties with the government due to his role leading SpaceX.  All of this means that, ultimately, even though Trump will have the power to try making good on this campaign pledge, it may not work out the way he promised. 
vox.com
Canucks star JT Miller leaves team for personal reasons
Vancouver Canucks star J.T. Miller will be away from the team indefinitely as he takes a leave of absence, the organization said Tuesday. No reason was given.
foxnews.com
Trump taps former WWE CEO for education secretary and more top headlines
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox.
foxnews.com
Rep. Nancy Mace says she’s getting threats over trans bathroom bill: ‘They are threatening to kill me over this’
South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace says she has been inundated with death threats over her push to ban incoming transgender Democratic Rep.-elect Sarah McBride and others from using female restrooms inside the Capitol.
nypost.com
Biden makes another Ukraine policy shift with approval of sending anti-personnel mines
Ukrainian forces are now being supplied with American anti-personnel mines, a second escalation by President Biden before leaving office.
foxnews.com
Washington judge says 'female-only' spa is akin to 'Whites-only' policy
A judge in Washington state slammed a female-only spa's admissions policy on Monday, claiming the mandate is akin to having a "whites-only" policy.
foxnews.com
Prep talk: Simmons brothers are finally Heritage Christian teammates
Senior Tae Simmons and freshman Eli Simmons have played many games against each and now love being on same team. They had highlight moments in opener.
latimes.com
US soccer star Christian Pulisic insists Trump dance not political: 'Thought it was funny'
U.S. soccer star Christian Pulisic scored twice against Jamaica on Monday. He did the Trump dance after one of the goals he scored and explained why.
foxnews.com
US shuts Kyiv embassy due to ‘potential significant air attack,’ tells Americans in Ukraine to be ready to seek shelter
The U.S. Embassy recommends U.S. citizens be prepared to immediately shelter in the event an air alert is announced.
nypost.com
Woman linked to 14 poisoning murders is sentenced to death
Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn, 36, is accused of swindling thousands of dollars from her victims before killing them with cyanide.
cbsnews.com
Lala Kent gives rare update on coparenting with Randall Emmett, reveals plans for more kids on ‘WWHL’
The former couple welcomed daughter Ocean in March 2021. Kent welcomed another baby girl named Sosa in September with the help of a sperm donor.
nypost.com
From Harvard to high-scorer: Kings' Alex Laferriere acing his start to season
Alex Laferriere took a somewhat unusual path to the NHL, choosing to play in the Ivy League at Harvard for onetime Kings and Ducks forward Ted Donato.
latimes.com