I have served on the boards of several non-profits who give direct aid to those in need. You all are way overestimating people’s general willingness to give. I know, I ask people of means for money all the time and they say no.
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I’m really sorry to hear that. Do you know why they say no? I’m just curious if they are general scrooges or if they have their donation “favorites” and that’s who gets their money.
Lots of different reasons.
I give to other organizations. We’re tapped out. Not interested. Send me the info. I already gave. I need to talk to my wife. I’m going to have a big tax bill this year. Etc. Etc.
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It’s difficult to say how much people would donate if taxes were significantly reduced. I can think of several factors that might push the needle in one direction or the other;
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It’s possible people might donate more money, since they have greater cash flow.
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It’s possible people might donate less money, since there’s less of an important tax break, if taxes are lower.
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People might cut back on their hours at work, since they need less money, and possibly “donate” through volunteerism.
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Reduced taxes means reduced government spending on welfare programs, which creates a greater need in the impoverished community, which might incentivize some people to donate more. This is evidenced by large number of donations over the last decade that occur in response to specific massive disaster events.
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It’s possible greater need will cause more non-profits to spring up and take the place of government programs that end.
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It’s possible many people on current government assistance programs will have this as an impetus to get out and work and become self sufficient. There’s at least one person nation-wide on welfare, that is on welfare by choice and could get a job but is too lazy and doesn’t need it. And if there’s one, there’s likely two. And if there’s two… there’s probably some percentage of welfare recipients that don’t really need it and are opportunistic. Maybe 1% maybe 10% maybe 80%. I have no idea - but when those people leave the welfare state and join productive society, our economy grows.
I suspect on a net, people will donate significantly more to charities for the reasons above if government programs were all slashed and taxes were lowered.
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Asking for money and hearing “no” in response does not equate to a low willingness to give. I have a set % of income I try to “donate” each year and nearly all that money goes to organizations whose missions I cared about before I started giving them money. I rarely give much money to an organization that just “asks” me for money or an organization that my friend is collecting money for.
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Don’t the vast majority of charities spend more than half of their money on trying to get more money? As well as other administration/etc costs. Find it hard to believe that charities are dramatically more efficient than the govt.
And even if they are, that still leaves a gap in funding for charities that support under-represented or under-appreciated needs. As a society, should we really be spending more money researching breast cancer than other cancers just because they’re better at raising money for it?
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More giving and less asking might be better - I support causes because I want to, not because they ask me to (which I often view negatively). Before we had all this welfare, there was more of a culture of charity.
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I think this thinking falls into the “good old days” mentality, but part of the reason for the welfare state was that there were tons of poor ppl who really didn’t have any help and were stuck in their hovels with no hope. Personally I think we need to radically rethink how this works and I don’t have a great idea of what that would look like (partly because the more research I do the more I realize I don’t know).
In the same Dept, I’m very impressed with the Betsy Devos, the reason she’s such a force in edu right now is bec she saw a problem, spent 6 years toturing kids in public schools to get a better idea of what issues they’re facing and is now working on solutions, whether you agree with or like her solutions is a different question but you have to admit she spent time in the trenches and was very invested in all the issues each kid she spent time with faced.
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Only about 20% of money given to charities actually goes to help the needy.
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There are websites that will tell you how effective charities are. And how much they spent on admin vs their goal. I try to only give to those that have a 10-90 (or higher) split respectively.
I’d be very interested to see where you got that number from.
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Source?
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Sorry I remembered wrong… its actually 1/3
Here some 2014 stats on the percentage of AGI people give to tax deductible organizations.
I believe this only includes people who itemized and maybe even only people who had charitable deductions so it’s not a completely accurate view.
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What percentage of tax dollars actually go to help the needy?
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That’s misleading. It’s not that 1/3 of charitable dollars targeted to the poor, go to the poor. It’s that 1/3 of the charitable dollars go to organizations that target poor people. The biggest recipient of those non-targeted-to-the-poor donations are religious organizations.
If true this number is because most charities aren’t run by robots.
I’ve worked the budget side of a decent size church. Volunteer time is valuable but at the end of the day there is overhead in everything. A good size church’s budget is going to be 75% building/staff/maintenance and 25% outreach and programs. That’s just how it works. Now every $1 given above the operating costs can pretty much 100% go towards the current outreach and programs, but if you bring on a new program you bring on new overhead.
I think that if all wellfare programs disappeared you’d see a dramatic shift in giving and outreach, because the need would be there and a vacuum would be created. People are compassionate when they have means to help others. In urban areas churches and current NPs could probably be expanded and meet some basic needs.
But in states where poverty is very much the majority and maybe even across the whole country you’d see rise to NGOs who work and act basically like the government organizations you just removed. Case workers, deciding who gets aid, and people working to trip up the system are going to exists again because we don’t have robots to do those things. And the people to plan, administer and fund those programs cost money.
People. The problem is people. The solution is Robots.
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Its not meaning to imply that charities are inefficient. But the reality is what it is.
Most people don’t really target their charitable giving to the poor and in the end most of the money doesn’t get to the poor.
I don’t think a tax cut would change the %.
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People think this. Last time they cut welfare or food stamps or any other government funding for the needy was there a corresponding increase in charity giving targetted at the poor? should be easy to see it.
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I think there’s a big difference between a cutback and cutting off. Cutting off you’d see news reports of kids starving, lines for food at pantries, etc. Those types of visuals would spur people into action.
Which programs? Which programs are they talking about cutting right now?