I would like to know what percentage of this giving is to an organization to which the giver belongs. I don't think of that kind of giving as charity. The money I give to my church benefits me. I suspect that the high percentage of giving in Utah is giving to the Mormon church, which benefits Mormons.

Yes, we are all aware of the incredible number of studies where conservatives give more, but liberals insist that they "give" in ways such as protests, rallies, trolling forums, vandalism, strikes, harassment and are deeply upset that making everyone miserable does not count as charity.

In other words, they are leeches...

Calling people leeches is the sort of thing that makes the Culture War a Punch and Judy show and not an actual thing that works or is worth doing.

So only liberals do all that? You must be far right or something.

Heads up. Some people in Utah ARE Mormon. It makes sense to utilize the church you belong to in order to facilitate giving. They help everyone, without regard to religion. I know they have to pay for overhead, but I imagine the church overhead is far lower than say Amnesty International or Planned Parenthood. Its not like union dues where you send it in and they piss it away on politics, churches help a lot of people directly. But that's ok, the left just keeps telling themselves they care more.

The churches in question are in the business of proselytizing and use the funds and "help" to support their evangelizing. We are not talking charity here, we are talking churches, under the guise of "charity," selling their wares and seeking to impose their "truth" on others. Big difference between that and what groups such as Planned Parenthood does.

So, you are saying that planned parenthood DOESN'T proselytize and use funds to "help" to support their evangelizing? Mmm-kay....

Except for the LDS church, where the missionaries pay their own way. And, in areas where proselytizing is forbidden, but need relief anyway, the LDS church will send relief aid and workers with specific direction to not proselytize.

Yeah...planned PH is such a "giving" organization...actually, they take away more than they give in the form of denying human life from escaping the womb...idiot!

Nice troll, RW.... Question: if you donate to .. say... the Klan, does that count as unplanned unParenthood, since PP founder Magie Sanger was a big Klan fan - keynote speaker at klan rallies and such - or would that be different even if they have the same end goal in mind?

Dear Pat, I am happy to answer your question as to how giving to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/"Mormon") benefits people all over the world, the vast majority of whom are not members of the LDS Church. There are just over 15 million LDS members worldwide, and 7.2 billion people living on this planet, so it's only logical that the money Mormons contribute helps millions of people who are NOT LDS.

For reference and greater understanding, I've provided the link to an article which gives an excellent overview of the many, many ways the LDS Church has donated time, talents (manpower) and financial aid to some of the greatest natural disasters of recent memory, in addition to programs such as the renowned Church Welfare System that helps both members and non-members alike.

Please take some time to read this article so you will better understand the generosity of the Latter-day Saints to our global community. This giving is done out of our desire to follow the example of Jesus Christ, who ministered to the "least of these among us."

http://www.mormonnewsroom.o...

Pat, your comment makes little sense. If I find an organization I feel is efficient with my money and spends it in a way that fits my values, why would I not be inclined to join that organization? As far as churches go in my experience, they are much more judgmental of each other than who they help. Oh, and LDS provided wheelchairs to 57,000 people in 54 countries last year. http://www.ldsphilanthropie.... Not just Mormons.

Pat really doesn't want to hear all this...he was simply looking for an excuse to bash the LDS/Mormon religion...pure and simple. The same can be said for RichWA above...

Most churches do better things with their money than the government! I would give to a church over gvnt any day!! Mormons help others, not just their own. Helping the poor, all the poor, is a major tenant of the faith.

I count myself as liberal if I need to label, but have been saddened by the liberal response (like Huffington Post, etc) to these studies. It looks pretty clear that liberals giving to charity-plus-community is a bit less than charity-plus-community by conservatives. The underlying reason seems to be related tightly with church attendance -- to showing up regularly with a tight community -- and that seems to be one of the most clear pieces of the sometimes murky statistics. So, why don't we think about what's happening as people leave home-towns and church-communities, and try to build that back into modern, busy, constantly-moving communities. If you're keeping score, conservatives get this point, and we have something we need to learn. (though really the whole culture is in transformation, and keeping score isn't the most helpful thing to be doing.) Also, even if conservative voters are only giving as much as liberals, that would invalidate a lot of the blogosphere hype about the differences between people in the two parties is wrong. If you want to convince Americans that everyone should have health-care and that our public schools should be as good as Finland's, the problem is not that conservative voters are less giving people, so rethink our arguments.

This is a mostly wrong statement about the LDS Church's distribution of charitable giving. While the tithing funds that are donated at 10% of a person's income, that money is used to support the buildings and other areas of the organization, the funds that are donated for charitable purpose are used to give relief to ALL people, regardless of religious affiliation.

http://www.mormonnewsroom.o...

Measuring charity by accumulating IRS claimed deductions merely accumulates the fraudsters into one tally. In 2010 an IRS audit found about 273,000 taxpayers claimed approximately $3.8 billion in potentially erroneous non-cash charitable contributions in 2010 resulting in about $1.1 billion in tax benefits. I could not find a similar audit for 2012 - I'll wager the numbers shifted very little. My charitable giving is not found on my Tax Return because I am not charitable for the tax credit. it is called "altruism" and once you have it - you just don't vote republican so much.

When donating to a "church" as a charity the average for a church is 27% of revenue going to real charitable ends - compared to a well rated charity which puts of 95% of funds into the charitable goal.

The average for a church is 71% in operating expenses... a lean charity runs less than 5% in overhead.

For worst case, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS or Mormon Church), which regularly trumpets its charitable donations, gave about $1 billion to charitable causes between 1985 and 2008. That may seem like a lot until you divide it by the twenty-three-year time span and realize this church is donating only about 0.7 percent of its annual income.

Walmart donated $1.75billion in just food aide last year alone.

I’ve seen with my own eyes the effect of the LDS church (and other churches) helping people. I’ve seen marriages saved, under privileged kids tutored, people’s rent and food paid for while they were out of work, and the program expenses for boys and girls from poor families paid for so that they could go to camp and participate in other beneficial youth programs. Much of this cost was either paid for out of the general overhead of a church or was free because the members involved simply volunteered their time. A single adult congregation I know of in Palo Alto runs a tutoring program where 50 or 60 kids are helped with their homework twice a week while their parents are taught English in a separate room. None of this costs any money, all of it is volunteer. From you post, it sounds like you do a lot of volunteer work as well. That is great and our country needs more people like yourself. However, don’t assume that because someone gives money to pay the overhead expenses of their church (building maintenance and other such things) that that is the limit of one’s charitable giving and efforts to help people, or that it is necessarily a bad thing. There is a lot going on out there that most people just are not aware of. Different strokes for different folks.

2 Corinthians 9:7 Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Matthew 6:2-5 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

3 Reasons why Conservatives are More Generous than Liberals
http://www.wholereason.com/...

Very interesting. But the conservative/generous link is more complicated. To oversimplify and overgeneralize, Conservatives and Republicans prefer a smaller role for government in dealing with social needs -- but because many of them care about these needs, they turn more to private action for the public good (donations). Liberals and Democrats prefer a larger role for government in dealing with social needs, and therefore there is less reason for them to make donations.

How do we define generosity? If we look at who wants to throw the most resources at social problems through some combination of tax-financed government and voluntary donations as our measure of generosity, it is unclear who is more generous. My suspicion is that the democrats and liberals are, but I haven't done (or seen) a proper study.

http://fff.org/2014/10/17/m...
2 Corinthians 9:7 Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Matthew 6:2-5 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
http://www.american.com/arc...
.. http://www.ethicsdaily.com/...
...

Rich, that is just moronic! The government takes from us and uses it for all kinds of crap (see the study using millions to watch drunk monkeys). I guess that was "dealing with social needs"? The wastes trillions on stuff that is of no social value; it is not chartiy!

Democrats are generous with other people's money.

I find this interesting but think the statistics point in another direction. When they separate out all the variables, the beliefs about "small government role in dealing with social needs" are not connected to giving. It's all about church attendance. Person-by-person, non-religious small-gov't conservatives are the worst; religious big-gov't liberals [a rare group] the best, but the politics barely count and the church attendance counts for a lot. It's when you total things up, there are so many more church-going conservatives than church-going liberals, and church-going is the biggest factor, that creates the results of these studies. Person-by-person, politics don't seem too connected to our compassion. The big take-aways for me are (1) that liberals (etc) desperately need to find a way to replace home-town, church-attendance, community that is missing in many modern lives, and (2) political views seem to come at least a bit from somewhere else than our hearts... both givers and non-givers think the gov't should do a little or a lot to help.

http://fff.org/2014/10/17/m... There is a persistent stereotype about charitable giving in politically progressive regions of America: while people on the political right may be hardworking and family-oriented, they tend not to be very charitable toward the less fortunate. In contrast, those on the political left care about vulnerable members of society, and are thus the charitable ones. Understanding “charity” in terms of voluntary gifts of money (instead of government income redistribution), this stereotype is wrong.
The fact is that self-described “conservatives” in America are more likely to give—and give more money—than self-described “liberals.” In the year 2000, households headed by a conservative gave, on average, 30 percent more dollars to charity than households headed by a liberal. And this discrepancy in monetary donations is not simply an artifact of income differences. On the contrary, liberal families in these data earned an average of 6 percent more per year than conservative families.

These differences go beyond money. Take blood donations, for example. In 2002, conservative Americans were more likely to donate blood each year, and did so more often, than liberals. People who said they were “conservative” or “extremely conservative” made up less than one-fifth of the population, but donated more than a quarter of the blood. To put this in perspective, if political liberals and moderates gave blood like conservatives do, the blood supply in the United States would surge by nearly half.

2 Corinthians 9:7 Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

1 Corinthians 13:3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Luke 6:32-35 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

Proverbs 3:27 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.

Proverbs 22:9 The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor.

Matthew 6:2-5 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Since these figures are based on IRS data, the percentage figures probably understate the charitable giving, particularly for lower income states. Charitable giving figures are only transmitted to the IRS for taxpayers who itemize deductions. (In 2013, I gave over 14% of my AGI to charity, but still used the standard deduction.)

Liberals are generous with OTHER people's money, not their own... that's how it works. Same result as 2004 with Bush and Benedict Arnold...

DC? that's PAC money - that isn't Charity - same with MD - PG County? that's not going to real charity, that's going to influence pedaling... but it is funny how the libs are real generous with other people's money but not their own - way to go New England! stay classy! bottom six!