New Study: Three-Quarters of American Giving Goes to Religion

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http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/7417/new_study__three_quarters_of_american_giving_goes_to_religion/

November 25, 2013

Yes, religion causes people to give more...to religion itself.

By JAY MICHAELSON



God: a good cause?


Jay Michaelson
Dr. Jay Michaelson is Associate Editor of Religion Dispatches and the author of five books, most recently "Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment" (North Atlantic, 2013). He holds a J.D. from Yale and a Ph.D. in Jewish Thought from Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Americans give a lot of money to religion—but not in the ways we usually think.

These are among the findings of the National Study of American Religious Giving, as distilled into a report released today entitled Connected to Give: Faith Communities. The report is third in a series of documents crunching the large amounts of data in the national study, with at least three more yet to come.

Unlike previous data sets, the current study captures a wider swath of religious giving—not just that to churches, synagogues, mosques, and the like, but to religiously-affiliated organizations like Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army. When that larger group is included, 73%—almost three quarters—of American giving goes to religious organizations.

This point is significant for several reasons. First, it highlights the importance of religion in American philanthropic life. Religion is where American give, and a reason why they give. Along with the 73% statistic, the study revealed that 55% of Americans say that their religious orientation (a weird locution, but one the study chose) motivates their giving.

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