Top 5 US charitable causes in 2005
1. Religious/Faith-based $88.3bn
2. Education $33.8 bn
3. Health $22 bn
4 Human services $19.2 bn
5. Arts, culture and humanities $14 bn
(Sources: Center on Philanthropy, Indiana University, National Philanthropic Trust, Foundation Center, and American Association of Fundraising Counsel)
People overseas are constantly being told what a philanthropic lot the Americans are, an attempt to shame Europeans, for instance, into giving more to charity. But the reality is that a huge chunk of giving goes to religious causes. When this only marginally useful and (I would maintain) misdirected type of giving is taken out of the consideration, the extent of American philanthropic generosity becomes clearer.
In the cause of Epicurean reasonableness, it would be interesting to have a breakdown of the religious giving. For instance, what proportion goes to maintaining bricks and mortar and salaries of priests? What proportion goes to proselytizing the poor, benighted heathen overseas? And what proportion goes to the working poor, the terminally ill, the lifelong disabled and to overcoming such things as teenage pregnancy and aids?
I have an elderly second cousin who lives in South London and is a devout Catholic. She is chair-bound, deaf and crippled since birth. The local priest has not been near her for years. Those who look after her and fight her corner are, as far as I know, atheists. One story does nothing to condemn a whole religion, but it is watching something like this unfold that has turned me from a chapel-goer in my youth to a hostile witness now.