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African American Charitable Giving Increases with Wealth Increase
The following is a snapshot of some of the data that
John Havens, Senior Associate Director of the
Center, has compiled on African American charitable
giving.
Based on SCF, from 2001 to 2004 African
American headed households increased their
aggregate networth from $1.05 trillion
(assets of $1.49 trillion but debt of $0.44
trillion) to $1.68 trillion (assets of $2.33
trillion but debt of $0.65 trillion).
Aggregate charitable contributions increased
from $10.5 billion (1.8% of income) to $13.8
billion (2.5% of income). There was a 60%
increase in aggregate wealth among African
Americans and a 31% increase in aggregate
charitable giving. Business ownership
increased from 3.0% to 4.7%. The percentage
of African American households with at least
$500,000 in assets increased from 354,000
households to 1,035,000 households. The
median African American net worth however
remains unchanged at a low $20,000.
There is a sizable group (circa 25%) of
African American households whose income and
wealth is growing rapidly. These people are
disproportionately young, married, home
owners, well-educated, and business owners.
Few have inherited any wealth; they are
making all the money now.
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Dear Colleagues:
I am pleased to send you the spring issue of our
newsletter, Wealth and the Commonwealth.
We are delighted to announce that the Center has
received a $600-thousand grant from the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation, which will be used to expand our
capacity and conduct the unparalleled Survey on
Wealth, Spirituality, and Philanthropy, reaching
households of $25 million or more. More detail about
the Gates Foundation grant can be found below.
We are very happy to announce a conference to be
held on May 23, 2007 at Boston College co-
sponsored by the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy
and Smith Barney Consulting Group. This
symposium is designed to help provide expert
knowledge and insight about the trends, meanings,
motives and strategies that influence today's
philanthropies. We have assembled a roster of
professionals to share their thoughts on both the
challenges of today and designing the best practices
for the future. Space at this conference is limited and
we urge you to reserve your spot today. For more
information please click here.
The first of these articles informs the debate about the
impact of reduced estate taxes on charitable giving.
This edition also includes a discussion of three
recent
reports we’ve published, “Leaving a Legacy of Care,”
“It
Is Better to Receive and to Give,” and “Philanthropy’s
Indispensable Ally.”
The first of these articles informs the debate about the
impact of reduced estate taxes on charitable giving.
The second article reports that even controlling for
wealth and income, recipients of gifts or inheritances
give significantly more to charity than non-recipients.
The third report indicates that a self-defined sense of
financial security by a wealth holder is has a positive
relationship with lifetime giving.
In addition to these articles, we have also included a
profile of Robert A. Kenny, the newest addition to the
Center’s staff. Bob joins us as CWP’s Associate Director
for External Relations. We are very excited to welcome
Bob, and look forward to the many positive contributions
he will make to the Center.
As always, I welcome your comments and feedback. I
wish you, your family, and your friends a relaxing spring
season.
Cordially,
Paul Schervish
Center on Wealth and Philanthropy
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| Gates Foundation Awards CWP $600-Thousand Grant |
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The Boston College Center on Wealth and
Philanthropy has received a $600-thousand
grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The award will be used to expand the capacity
of the Center, which is nationally recognized
for its research on the patterns of
charitable giving by wealth holders. Among
other initiatives, the grant will launch an
unparalleled wealth study - the first
large-scale survey to focus exclusively on
households with at least $25 million in net
worth, with a considerable portion of those
respondents above $100 million, including
some billionaires.
The groundbreaking survey will explore the
spiritual formulation of wealth for
individuals and the new cultural
underpinnings of wealth for society. The
objective is to better understand wealth
holders’ decision-making about allocation of
resources and how they fashion a moral
biography of wealth for themselves that
generates care for others. In short, the
Gates funded study will provide a basis for
the advancement of a social movement of
thoughtful philanthropy and assist wealth
holders in understanding their place in this
movement.
This project is aligned with the Gates
Foundation goal of expanding philanthropy by
providing benchmark information for wealth
holders and professionals who work with them.
According to Schervish, director of the
Center, the project’s findings are also for
the general public who may not be
technically wealthy but for whom the use of
discretionary resources is an increasingly
pertinent spiritual question.
"We are grateful to the Gates Foundation for
enabling us to expand the body of our
knowledge through this groundbreaking work,"
Schervish said. "The grant will allow us to
expand the reach of our message
throughout the world, both through our
research publications and through our
executive education programs for development
officers, wealth holding households and
financial professionals.”
“The Survey on Wealth, Spirituality, and
Philanthropy,” to be directed by Schervish
and John J. Havens, Senior Research Associate
and Senior Associate Director of the Center
on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College,
was launched in January 2007, and is expected
to be in the field by September and published
in the autumn of 2008. The project ties
directly to the past efforts of the Center to
interview and survey wealth holders. This
survey will ask behavioral and attitudinal
questions about the little understood
dilemmas, obstacles, opportunities, and
spiritual understandings of wealth and will
tender a rare insight into the financial and
philanthropic counseling needs of ultra high
net worth households.
"This study is significant," said Schervish,
"because its findings will provide a window
into the cultural horizons of wealth and can
directly help wealth holders use their
resources as a tool for nobler purposes into
the 21st century.”
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| Donor’s Perception of Financial Security Foundational to All Giving |
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As first introduced in an article published in
Philanthropy Magazine titled, “Philanthropy’s
Indispensable Ally” late last spring, it is apparent that
“it is not just the objective size of people’s
pocketbooks that matters but also their subjective
sense of financial security” that largely influences
charitable giving. Analysis of the results from a
survey conducted by the Center shows that it is self-
assessed financial security that accompanies large
increases in giving. Paul Schervish, John Havens,
and Keith Whitaker, the authors of the article,
hypothesize that this can be attributed to the desire of
people to make sure their wealth will adequately
support the standard of living they’re used to before
deciding if and how much to donate.
These findings connect to two other articles by
Schervish, Havens, and Whitaker in Philanthropy
Magazine, “It is Better to Receive and to Give,”
and, “Leaving a Legacy of Care.” The first of these
articles indicates that of receivers of an inheritance
“have a greater sense of financial well-being and
confidence regarding the financial future [which]
leads to greater charitable giving.” The second of
these articles grapples with the question of the effects
of reduced estate taxes on charitable giving and find
that “as people become more financially secure,
incentives more powerful than taxes incline them to
support charity and to limit their bequests to heirs.”
The authors attributed this to that fact that “once
wealth-holders recognize their families are financially
secure, they tend to look for deeper purpose for their
material means.” Overall, whether giving, receiving,
or estate planning, charitable giving is related to
one’s subjective sense of financial security.
Continue reading at:
“Leaving a
Legacy of
Care”
Paul G. Schervish, John Havens, and Albert Keith
Whitaker
Published in Philanthropy Magazine
Volume XX, No. 1, pp. 11-13
“It Is Better
to Receive
and to Give”
Paul G. Schervish, John Havens, and Albert Keith
Whitaker
Published in Philanthropy Magazine
Volume XX, No. 4, pp. 10-12
July/August 2006
“Philanthropy’s
Indispensable Ally”
Paul G. Schervish, John Havens, and Albert Keith
Whitaker
Published in Philanthropy Magazine
Volume XIX, No. 3, pp. 8-9
May/June 2005
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| "The Moral Biography of Wealth: Philosophical Reflections on the Foundation of Philanthropy." |
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Moral biography refers to the way all
individuals
conscientiously combine two elements in daily
life:
personal capacity and moral compass.
Exploring the
moral biography of wealth highlights the
philosophical
foundations of major gifts by major donors.
In this article Paul Schervish first provides
several
examples to elucidate
his
definition of moral biography. Second, he
elaborates the
elements of a moral biography. Third, he
describes the
characteristics that make one's moral
biography a
spiritual or religious biography. Fourth, he
discusses the
distinctive characteristics of a moral
biography of
wealth. Fifth, he suggests that implementing
a process
of discernment will enable development
professionals to
work more productively with donors.
Schervish
concludes by placing the notion of a moral
biography
of wealth in historical context and suggests how
advancement professionals can deepen their
own moral
biography by working to deepen the moral
biography of
their donors.
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| Robert Kenny Joins the CWP Staff |
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Bob Kenny is Associate Director for External
Relations at the
Center on Wealth and Philanthropy. Bob holds
a doctorate in
Counseling Psychology from Boston University,
a certificate
of advanced studies from the Harvard
University Graduate
School of Education, a master's degree in
Educational
Psychology from Seton Hall University and a
BA in History
from Benedictine College.
Since July of 2006 Bob has been a visiting
scholar at
Money
and Values Project at The Marpa Center for
Business
and
Economics at Naropa University in Boulder
Colorado. For
almost five years Bob was the executive
director of
the More
Than Money Institute, a national non-profit
committed
to
helping people align their money with their
values as
they
live full and compassionate lives and make
meaningful
contributions to the greater good.
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