It’s a common combination across the country: Residents of areas with high standards of living, low poverty, and low crime give less to charity than those in less well off areas.
That’s one finding from new data, compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, combining giving behavior with quality-of-life measurements for 2,670 counties across the United States. It's based on data from The Chronicle’s How America Gives study, which shows the share of income Americans in different parts of the country have donated and the Opportunity Index, created by two antipoverty nonprofits, which assigns scores of socioeconomic well-being to counties based on measurements such as housing costs, preschool attendance, Internet access, and percent of residents with advanced degrees.
The inverse relationship between opportunity and giving is "a compelling, counterintuitive finding" that pushes against our assumptions that "places with higher scores would have higher rates of giving," said Russell Krumnow, managing director of Opportunity Nation, one of the nonprofits behind the Opportunity Index. "We really need everyone’s hands in this work, and the work of expanding opportunity is everyone’s."
