Women Give to Causes More than Men
Posted by Allison Fine on October 27, 2010
Ready to have your assumptions tested to the core about giving? A new study, Women Give 2010, from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute, a program of the venerable Institute on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Are you ready? Debra J. Mesch, Ph.D., director of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute has released a study of a large sample of women and men givers and found that, “Women across nearly every income category give significantly more than their male counterparts – in many cases, nearly twice as much.”
The conventional wisdom has always been that men give more money to nonprofits than women. Not just more often but more dollars. Part of the difficulty of looking at this issue is trying to determine whether the he or she is the lead giver for a married couple. This study teased apart this issue by just looking at single men and women along a continuum of income levels from $23,000 to 100,000. And lo and behold, women are giving more than men in every income bracket but one, the lowest one.
Here is an interesting tidbit: The study compared and controlled for different types of singles. Never married and divorced women were more likely to give and to give more than males of the same marital status; however, widowed men give more than widowed women, the study found.
And one more: 96% of the women in the study who earn more than $103,000 gave annually, on average $1,910 to charity. Only 75% of men in the same income category gave and their average gift was $984.
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This entry was posted on October 27, 2010 at 8:12 am and is filed under Social Media. Tagged: Debra J. Mesch, Institute on Philanthropy at Indiana University, Women Give 2010, Women's Philanthropy institute. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
5 Responses to “Women Give to Causes More than Men”
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Anna said
Given the women I know, this doesn’t surprise me but I’m always have to have my own anecdotal observations confirmed by science! Thanks for posting.
Anna
Anna McDonnell
http://5forFairness.org
Allison Fine said
I agree. I’m wondering, though, as to whether we think that men give more because the very large gifts, say over $1 million, have male names attached. I asked the folks at the Women’s Philanthropy Institute about this. Hope to have word soon.
Adriene Davis said
Thanks for sharing this information. The only income bracket in which men gave more than women was the second lowest: income between $23,509 and $43,500. The Women’s Philanthropy Institute team is hosting a conference in Chicago this week, but we’ll have more in response to your question soon!
Adriene Davis said
This is a great question. The answer is unclear, based on current research, but it’s an issue we’re working on. To really look at gender differences among wealthy individuals, we would need to over-sample this population because people who give gifts of over $1 million are a small percentage of the population. The Women Give 2010 study looked at a nationally representative U.S. sample, which did not over-sample the wealthy. We are very interested in better understanding gender patterns in giving at this level; stay tuned!.
Debra Mesch, director of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute, says the answer to your second question may in part be due to differences in the ways men and women prefer to be recognized. Some women are not comfortable with being the center of attention–or calling attention to themselves; they have not been socialized this way. However, men have been socialized to communicate status. That is likely why you see men’s names in the press as donors of buildings–they generally don’t want to be anonymous. But some women may feel uncomfortable with this type of recognition. Many publicized gifts at the million-dollar level also are given by couples, and it’s difficult to know which partner influenced those gifts. Previous research suggests women play a significant role in such decisions, but they generally are reported as gifts from the couple. More research is needed to understand both of these issues.
westwo said
Then maybe Darfur organizations should team up more often with show like American Idol to raise money.If you hit an audience with plenty of female viewers then hopefully you’ll be able to raise money easier. I think American Idol might’ve done that already, but they do it like once within each season. I just saw the new Attack On Darfur the other day, and I know if more people were to watch it, being more aware of Darfur’s conditions organizations definitely would be able to raise more money.
http://bit.ly/9Een8H