Massachusetts Doesn’t Donate Much to Charity, Makes Up for It By Not Volunteering
On Monday, The Chronicle of Philanthropy released an analysis of charitable giving in the US, which found that New Englanders are pretty stingy in their donations. Turns out Massachusetts residents aren’t much more giving of their time in volunteering, according to data from the Corporation for National and Community Service.
As we noted, the Chronicle analysis only looked at Internal Revenue Service tax returns on charitable deduction, which gives a helpful but incomplete picture of generosity. What about volunteering at the soup kitchen or for Habitat for Humanity? That should count toward measuring charitable giving, right?
The volunteer rates, or percentage of adults who volunteered through an organization in 2012, was commendable for Vermont. Less so for Rhode Island.
So we reached out to the Corporation for National and Community Service, which annually completes a Volunteering and Civic Life in America study. They provided us with a state-by-state breakdown of adult volunteer rates and hours per capita spent volunteering.
Sad news, Massachusetts defenders: The new data won’t help your case.
Nationally, the study found that 26.5 percent, or about one in four, American adults volunteered through an organization in 2012. Massachusetts’ volunteer rate came in slightly below average at 25.4 percent, good for the 34th-highest volunteer rate.
Massachusetts fared similarly mediocre with 31.3 hours volunteered per capita, the 37th-highest number in the country. Neither of those data points are anything to hang your hat on.
Consider, for a second, that Massachusetts residents had the 34th-highest volunteer rate but the 37th-most in hours per capita. That means that not only did relatively few Massachusetts residents volunteer, but those that did actually go out to help spent less time than other comparable states.
Combine that information with Monday’s donation rate analysis, and it’s a pretty bleak look at Massachusetts stinginess.
Massachusetts finished 46th among the 50 states and DC in donation rate, a measure of how much of their income people donated to charities. The greater Boston area, too, finished as the 47th-most giving city among the top 50 metropolitan areas. Yeesh.
It wasn’t just Massachusetts. Rhode Island had the country’s 42nd-highest volunteer rate and similarly was 47th in donation rate. In almost every way, New England residents fared poorly in the rates that they donated compared to donation rates from the rest of the country.
Vermont and Maine do deserve some credit. They made up for their poor charitable donation numbers – 49th and 50th place, respectively – to excel at volunteerism. Vermont boasted the 6th-highest volunteer rate with 35.9 percent, and Maine held down the 14th-highest volunteer rate with 32.6 percent.
You can check out the full list of volunteer rates for all 50 states and DC below.
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