Who Gives More to Charity?

Charity's Political Divide

Republicans give a bigger share of their incomes to charity, says a prominent economist

By Ben Gose

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In Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (Basic Books), Arthur C. Brooks finds that religious conservatives are far more charitable than secular liberals, and that those who support the idea that government should redistribute income are among the least likely to dig into their own wallets to help others.

Some of his findings have been touched on elsewhere by other scholars, but Mr. Brooks, a professor of public administration at Syracuse University, breaks new ground in amassing information from 15 sets of data in a slim 184-page book (not including the appendix) that he proudly describes as "a polemic."

"If liberals persist in their antipathy to religion," Mr. Brooks writes, "the Democrats will become not only the party of secularism, but also the party of uncharity."

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Mr. Brooks is Roman Catholic and politically independent, and has registered as both a Democrat and a Republican in the past decade. In an interview, he says he set out to write a book about values and philanthropy, with no hidden agenda.

He believes liberal Democrats must ignore their leaders who sometimes disdain charity, and demonstrate that the Democratic Party is still welcoming to people of faith, if they hope to prove that they are, in fact, the more compassionate party.

"This book is a call to action for the left, not a celebration of the right," Mr. Brooks says.

That's a claim that some liberals may have a tough time believing, given Mr. Brooks's withering criticism in the book of liberal icons like Ralph Nader, Mr. Brooks's work for The Wall Street Journal's famously conservative op-ed page, and a promotional tour for the book that reads like a conservative coming-out party. There's a keynote address at a Manhattan Institute for Policy Research dinner, a book signing at the American Enterprise Institute, and an interviews with John Stossel of ABC's 20/20 and radio talk-show host Michael Medved ?- two people known for conservative views.

Patrick Rooney, director of research at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy, says Mr. Brooks's inclusion of strongly worded personal opinions is "a doubled-edged blade."

"He will certainly get more attention," Mr. Rooney says. "But at the same time, it might invite more criticism and skepticism."

Mr. Brooks says he is ready to take the heat. "If I did my job, this will stimulate a whole bunch of new work," he says. "In five years, I'd be delighted to say that in certain ways, I was wrong."

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His initial research for Who Really Cares revealed that religion played a far more significant role in giving than he had previously believed. In 2000, religious people gave about three and a half times as much as secular people ?- $2,210 versus $642. And even when religious giving is excluded from the numbers, Mr. Brooks found, religious people still give $88 more per year to nonreligious charities.

He writes that religious people are more likely than the nonreligious to volunteer for secular charitable activities, give blood, and return money when they are accidentally given too much change.

"There is not one measurably significant way I have ever found in which religious people are not more charitable than nonreligious people," Mr. Brooks says. "The fact is, if it weren't for religious people in your community, the PTA would shut down."

Byron R. Johnson, a sociology professor and co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, says he recently gathered data that show similar results ?- such as high levels of civic engagement among religious people ?- while assembling a report on faith in America that was released in September.

"It was not surprising to me that the lil ol' farmer in South Dakota outgave people in San Francisco," Mr. Johnson says. "But I think to the everyday citizen, this might strike them as counterintuitive."

The first draft of the book focused mostly on religion. Lara Heimert, Mr. Brooks's editor at Basic Books, told him there was "an elephant in the room" ?- his failure to grapple with the connections between politics and giving.

Mr. Brooks agreed that he needed to tackle politics. He writes that households headed by a conservative give roughly 30 percent more to charity each year than households headed by a liberal, despite the fact that the liberal families on average earn slightly more.

The book includes a "charity map" of the United States that closely resembles the now-famous electoral map showing blue and red states. Of the 25 states that donated a portion of household income above the national average in 2001, Mr. Brooks writes, 24 gave a majority of votes to President Bush three years later.

Most of the difference in giving among conservatives and liberals gets back to religion. Religious liberals give nearly as much as religious conservatives, Mr. Brooks found. And secular conservatives are even less generous than secular liberals.

At the outset of his research, Mr. Brooks had assumed that those who favor a large role for government would be most likely to give to charity. But in fact, the opposite is true.

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Mr. Brooks calls it a "bitter irony" that those favoring income redistribution are not doing much redistributing from their own bank accounts ?- and he blames liberal leaders like Mr. Nader for letting liberals off the hook.

"In essence, for many Americans, political opinions are a substitute for personal checks," Mr. Brooks writes.

In an interview, Mr. Nader, who had not seen an advance copy of Who Really Cares, says he has a tough time believing that Mr. Brooks's conclusions about weak giving among liberals are accurate.

"If you look at the liberal environmental and antipoverty groups, you don't see counterparts on the right wing," he says.

"Everyone could be giving more to charity," Mr. Nader says. "I don't think liberals give enough, and I don't think conservatives give enough."

Alan J. Abramson, director of the nonprofit-research program at the Aspen Institute, a Washington think tank, questions whether Mr. Brooks is putting too much stock in data on giving, which Mr. Abramson describes as "mushy." He notes that surveys on giving put the percentage of American households who give to charity at between 50 percent and 80 percent ?- an incredibly wide range.

"If somebody called you up and asked you how much you gave last year, God knows what number you would pull out of the air," he says.

Mr. Brooks writes in the appendix that he tried to overcome this problem by using 15 sets of data, based on surveys conducted with individuals in person, over the phone, or through the mail. Every survey led to the same conclusions. "While individual surveys and populations might produce inaccuracies and biases, a large body of evidence is more trustworthy," he writes.

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Much religious giving is akin to paying dues at a club; it goes for such things as paying salaries and keeping the lights on. And in their secular giving, Mr. Abramson says, it is conceivable that conservative and religious people may be more likely than liberal donors to give to charities like colleges and hospitals, which do not focus mainly on serving the poor. "Even if conservatives or religious people are more generous in that they give more, it doesn't necessarily follow that they're giving redistributively," Mr. Abramson says.

Mr. Brooks says the data show that religious people, on average, give 54 percent more per year than secular people to human-welfare charities. Some of those charities may be religiously affiliated, but their work is focused on charity and not religion, he says.

JEROME A PARIS

Let me tell you something ugly about myself today.

Let me explain why I'm lazy, selfish and uncaring by trying to justify why I don't help charities.

I consider that organised support for the poor, the hungry or the sick should not be the responsibility of individuals, but rather that of public authorities, duly enpowered to do so and duly funded to do so.
I consider that the only way to take care in a durable, fair and consistent way of such tasks is if the State, or at least regional authorities, do it. Thus, I consider that I have no moral duty to go and participate myself personally to such soliarity.

Let me explain why.

Who decides what we care about?

Help needs to be provided in ways that address the most pressing problems, as identified by as objective a process as possible or, barring that, with as much collective (i.e. democratic) legitimacy as possible. Charity will always focus on the issues that the people which provide it care about, and may completely ignore other issues. This is even more true today with charities increasingly run by billionaires who call all the shots and decide to allocate funds according to criteria which they solely determine. Solidarity should not be subject to the whims of a few persons or private organisations. It should focus on the issues deemed most important by the public as a whole, not by self-appointed volunteers.

Congratulating Bill Gates and Warren Buffett because they are putting upwards of $60 bn in the Gates Foundation, as the press has been doing in recent motnhs with abandon, is incredibly shortsighted.

Such massive amounts on any given topic will inevitably lead to reductions in public funding of the same, and transfer decision making on major public policy issues to people whom we may admire but who represent no one but themselves. Worse, once public money is gone, it is unlikely to come back, and policy will end up being decided by entities with no requirement to continue to provide their services, no accountability beyond what they are willing to give, and no coherence with other public policy objectives.

nd whey they are on their own, you can be sure that they will start asking for public money to fulfill a "vital" role. Taxpayers will end up footing the bill but with much less effective oversight. Meanwhile, spending will have been funneled toward the topic of the billionaire's choosing.

Who is eligible for help?

Letting the private sector in charge of major planks of our social policy or of our healthcare policy brings about the risk that it will provide a selective service, i.e. will choose who is "worthy" of help, and what conditions they must fulfill to benefit from such help.

Imagine food banks that (explicitly or not, discreetly or not) refuse to give anything to unmarried women; imagine shelters that do not have room for coloured people; imagine health care centers that ask you to join a prayer group before you're treated. Or worse. The temptations of those that help to indulge in social engineering or proselyting are just too strogn to be ignored.

It's private help. Why wouldn't they put conditions to providing it? After all, they are under no obligation to provide that help to anyone. It's their money, and they should be free to choose how it's spend (or, in this case, on whom).

And charity moguls pride themselves on their effectiveness. Will they let ungrateful losers reduce the "efficiency" of their charity? No, they will reform their ways or they will not be helped. It's a good deal for them, after all.

Maybe it can be regulated and the most egregious exclusions made illegal, but will government ever be able to enforce it? And why use public money on enforcement that could be better spent on actually providing the same service in a fair and consistent way?

When, where and how is help provided?

Will help be provided where and when it is most needed? Can volunteers know how to focus their efforts in the most relevant way, without forgetting anyone that needs it? Will there be enough of them, in the right place, and with the right support? What happens if they stop for any reason (lack of availability, loss of motivation, or any other personal obstacle)?

Solidarity should not be subject to the whims, prejudices and availability of individuals, however well intentioned and generous. This is not to say that charity should not happen, of course, but that the basic level of solidarity that a society wishes to see for its weaker or unlucky members should be provided to all that need it, all the time, and everywhere, in an organised, consistent and fair way, and not subject to the random decisions of individuals. That help is provided in addition is great, it is always useful, but it should not be needed.

When I see the glorification of large private donors, who are bringing their business acumen and hardheadedness to the charity world, I worry that we are on in incredibly slippery slope, because it further decredibilises government, by suggesting that such tasks are better done by the private sector, and this therefore threatens the long term ability of democratically elected (and therefore legitimate) public authorities to determine what the common good should be, what the goals of public policy, and what tools should be used to that effect. In effect, authority and responsibility seeps from our representatives to the rich.

Do not believe that those that provide such charitable services will not eventually make demands on the body politic. They will get power, but will not provide accountability. After all, they are giving out money, why on earth would anyone have the right to say anything about how they choose to spend it?

Large scale charity is feudalism, pure and simple. It's a primitive form of government, based on the cult of the individual, the lack of formal rules, and the might-is-right mindset.

I'd rather have my government do it.

I'd rather pay more taxes so that decent public policies can be put in place.

I will always congratulate individuals that help others privately, on a local basis, or work for causes they believe in, but I will always be hostile to such generosity being counted on a macro level and claims about the solidarity of a society being determined by the accumulation of private generosity. The privatisation of solidarity, on a large scale, is a sign of failure, not of success.

I don't do charity. I pay taxes.