America’s Most Skeptical Donors Are Also the Most Generous to Charities

By Candie Jones

Only one in 10 Americans believe that charities use donations honestly and ethically, according to the latest

survey by Harris Interactive. And 32 percent said they believe that the nonprofit world “has pretty seriously gotten off in the wrong direction,” according to the findings.

Yet the concerns did not prevent those surveyed from donating money to charities.

More than nine in 10 adults made a financial contribution to a charity in the last year, according to the latest DonorPulse survey, which Harris Interactive conducts quarterly. That percentage is up from 80 percent who said they had given when asked last October.

Donors plan to keep giving over the next 12 months, the survey found.

Sixty-eight percent of Americans considering making donations in 2006 said they expect to give the same amount as they did in 2005, while 17 percent said they plan to give more.

Only 16 percent reported that they expect to decrease their giving in 2006.

The survey, which was conducted online in January, drew responses from 2,720 adults and asked participants about their views of nonprofit groups and their interaction with them in the past year.

Views of Older People

People age 65 and older were the most likely to be concerned about charities. Only 21 percent said they felt nonprofit organizations were “on the right track,” while at least 30 percent of people in other age groups expressed support for charities.

Thirty-six percent of those ages 18 to 24, for example, said they had a favorable view of the nonprofit world, as did 38 percent of those ages 25 to 29.

Although older Americans have less positive attitudes about nonprofit groups than younger adults, a bigger percentage of older people donate money to charity, according to the survey.

Ninety-five percent of those 50 and older have made a financial contribution in the past year, compared with 75 percent of those ages 18 to 29.

Older adults also are more likely to volunteer their time. Sixty-four percent of those ages 50 to 64 and 72 percent of those 65 and older said they volunteer at least monthly, compared with 52 percent of those ages 18 to 24 and 59 percent of those 25 to 29.

Thirty-one percent of all survey participants said that they volunteer weekly, while an additional 5 percent said they volunteer daily.

Among the other key findings:

• Forty-nine percent of the 2,523 adults in the survey who reported making financial contributions during the last year said they gave less than $500, while 6 percent donated $5,000 or more.

• Churches and other religious organizations were most frequently identified as the recipients of 2005 donations (by 50 percent of those surveyed), followed by disaster-relief organizations (47 percent). Local groups and programs were cited by 35 percent of those surveyed, while human-service organizations (34 percent) and organizations that serve youth and children (30 percent) were also frequent recipients of charitable donations.

• Twenty-seven percent of Americans said they did not believe that charities were “honest and ethical in their use of donated funds.”

The most recent DonorPulse survey is available on the Harris Interactive Web site (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PollYear=2006).