Why you should care about giving

Book review: Who Really Cares by Arthur Brooks (2006)

As a fundraiser, you probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about the concept of charity. You're much more concerned about the specific giving that comes your way (or doesn't). What does a fish know of water?

That's why you ought to read this book. It takes a close look at charity in the U.S., and it can help you understand the medium you work in. The insights you'll get will help you appreciate it more -- and just maybe do it better.

Knowledge is power, and this book will give you some cool knowledge about donors, including:

• The working poor are the most generous Americans, giving the greatest portion of their income to charity. They are followed by the wealthy. The middle class comes in well behind.
  
• Race and ethnicity are not good predictors of charitable giving. Giving is an equal-opportunity virtue.
  
• On the other hand, age and sex are good predictors: Women give more than men, and older people give more than younger people. (I bet you knew that already.)
  
• But the biggest predictor of giving is religious belief. Religious believers are much more likely to give, and they give more.
  
• Donors are far more likely to be politically conservative than liberal. This is the fact most often trumpeted in the media about the book. It's a product of the previous fact: More religious believers are conservative than are liberal. Believers on both sides have high levels of giving -- and nonbelievers on both sides have low levels of giving.
  

A lot of the book is about what giving does for givers, such as:

• Every dollar given to charity returns $3.75 in extra income for the giver.
  
• In fact, a dollar given to charity stimulates better than $19 for the economy as a whole. A rising GDP pushes up giving while giving pushes up the GDP!
  
• Givers are more happy than non-givers. They're 43% more likely to say they're "very happy," while non-givers are 3 1/2 times as likely to say they're "not happy at all."
  
• Givers are more healthy, too. 25% more likely to say their health is excellent or very good than non-givers.
  

These things ought to tell you that fundraising isn't just a way to get money to do good deeds -- it makes things better for everyone! If the fundraising-as-necessary-evil virus is loose in your organization, you should let folks know these things.

Give Who Really Cares a read. You can get it at Amazon, at Powell's and in airport bookshops.

(Feel free to take what I've said here with a grain of salt; the author is my brother. Not in the figurative sense. He's my actual brother.)

Technorati Tags: fundraising, donors

Comments

[Sean Stannard-Stockton]

I had not idea he was your brother. Quite the gene pool your parents started! I like having assumptions challenged. Arthur really stirred things up with some of his claims.

[Catherine]

Eric, Have you ever been a donor? Given anyone anything? How did it make you feel? Happy? Do you like feeling happy?

[Eric]

Very interesting results, Jeff.

Conservatives tell pollsters they're happier than liberals about just about everything. In fact, in mid November, Republicans told Gallup they were a lot happier with how the country was going than Democrats, even though they just lost a huge election.

So I'm curious about the chicken and egg situation here. Donors are happier becuase they give, or becuase they are more likely to be conservative, or because they are more likely to be religious.