Richest Americans Donating Less, Poor Give More To Charity

Photo Credit: Tax Credits

From Forbes.com:

"In the wake of the Great Recession, the richest Americans are donating less to charity, while the poorest are giving more, according to a new study. 

In a report released today, the Chronicle of Philanthropy found that Americans who earned at least $200,000 gave nearly 5% less to charity in 2012 than in 2006. 

Higher-income people tend to give proportionately less during tough economic times, says Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. 

“The downturn was a shock to so many of them, and they’ve been nervous and cautious,” she says. 

The shift has likely meant less money flowing into universities, hospitals and cultural institutions, which the wealthy tend to patronize. Lower- and middle-income donors often give to social service organizations, Palmer says. In part because these groups have had fewer dollars to give, those organizations have still faced a squeeze. 

Unlike their wealthier counterparts, low- and middle-income Americans — those who made less than $100,000 — gave 5% more in 2012 than in 2006, the Chronicle found. The poorest Americans — those who took home $25,000 or less — increased their giving by nearly 17%. 

“Lower and middle-income people know people who lost their jobs or are homeless, and they worry that they themselves are a day away from losing their jobs. They’re very sensitive to the needs of other people and recognize that these years have been hard,” Palmer says. 

Religiosity is another factor driving up giving among low- and middle-income Americans, she says. 

Wealthier Americans still gave more in absolute terms, increasing their donations between 2006 and 2012 by $4.6 billion, adjusted for inflation, to $77.5 billion. In that period, the collective wealth of Americans on The Forbes 400 soared by $1.04 trillion. 

Those who earned less than $100,000 gave $57.3 billion in 2012."

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College Students And Credit Card Debt

Photo Credit: 401(K) 2012

From USA Today:

"The Credit Card Act that took effect 2½ years ago made it much harder for anyone under 21 to get a card. Gone are the days of card issuers racking up scads of new customers on campus by handing out free T-shirts or rewards points for spring break.

"In the old days, if you could fog a mirror you could get a credit card," says Adam Levin, chairman and founder of Credit.com, a San Francisco-based company that provides information about credit products.

Under-21s can still obtain a credit card if they have a qualified co-signer or proof of sufficient income to repay the debt. And card issuers still market aggressively to college students, targeting them with pre-screened mail offers.

That makes parents, as the likeliest co-signers, more involved in the card-or-no-card decision.  Robyn Kahn Federman of Rochester, N.Y., says there's "no way" she'll let either of her two daughters have a credit card at such a financially tender age. Her daughter Sarah, who's 19 and about to start her second year of college, uses Robyn's PayPal card instead. That lets her mom fund the balance and see how she spends her money.

"I don't think anything related to debt belongs in the hands of a college kid," says Federman, communications director of a marketing agency. "The vast majority are not experienced enough with money or cognizant enough of the risks."

Some students, though, have shown they're disciplined enough to have their own card on campus.  Scott Gamm, 20, a junior at New York University's Stern School of Business, used his income from freelance work and blogging to obtain a Visa card and then an American Express card. He charges $200 to $300 on them monthly and pays every bill in full.

But he has friends who obtained three or four cards within a year and now have big debts.  "The more credit you have access to, especially at that young age, the higher the probability you'll use that card to finance fancy clothes, restaurants and entertainment," says Gamm."

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American Churches & Giving

Photo Credit: oblivion9999

Here are some eye-opening numbers about churches in the United States, our current giving patterns and the potential for where our resources could go.

Taken from MagSays:

The Problem That Currently Exists In American Churches

• Christians are giving at a 2.5% per capita or tithe.  During the Great Depression, they gave at a 3.3% rate.

• Today, 33-50% of church members, those who claim they have bought in at a deep level to your ministry, give nothing.

• If we were able to have our people increase their giving from 2.5% to 10% of their annual income, an additional $165 billion would flow into the Kingdom.  

To show the global impact those resources could make, consider the following:

• $25 billion would relieve global hunger, starvation, and deaths from preventable diseases in 5 years.

• $12 billion would eliminate illiteracy in 5 years.

• $15 billion would solve the world’s water and sanitation issues, specifically at places in the world where 1 billion people live on less than $1 per day.

• $1 billion would fully fund the Great Commission.$100 – $110 billion would still be left over for additional ministry expansion.

NOTE: the source of these statistics were provided by www.generouschurch.com.

Money Can't Buy You Love

Photo Credit: brandon king

"I'll give you all I got to give if you say you love me too/
I may not have a lot to give but what I got I'll give to you/
I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love" ~ The Beatles

Can money buy you love? Apparently not. Money may enable you to get more stuff but it won't necessarily help your relationship. From USA Today:

"Researchers have found that focusing on money and possessions can take a toll on couples' happiness and stability.

In conducting the study, investigators from Brigham Young University analyzed relationship evaluations completed by more than 1,700 married couples across the United States. The participants were asked how much value they placed on "having money and lots of things."

The study, published in the Oct. 13 issue of the Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, found that couples who believe that money is not important scored up to 15 percent higher on marriage stability and other measures of relationship quality than materialistic couples.

"Couples where both spouses are materialistic were worse off on nearly every measure we looked at," lead author, Jason Carroll, a BYU professor of family life, said in a university news release. "There is a pervasive pattern in the data of eroding communication, poor conflict resolution and low responsiveness to each other."

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