Trends That Will Affect Your Future … Giving

Americans reach into their pockets twice as much as the next most charitable country according to a November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation, and in that year, 2006, Americans donated an estimated $295.02 billion (emphasis added)—up from $283.05 billion in 2005.1 “It tells you something about American culture that is unlike any other country,” says Claire Gaudiani, a professor at NYU's Heyman Center for Philanthropy and author of The Greater Good: How Philanthropy Drives the American Economy and Can Save Capitalism.2, 3

And the generosity of spirit that is such an American hallmark can be found at every level of the culture. Even the poor give, and of that nearly $300 billion, individuals and families gave a combined 75.6% of the total, with bequests that rose to 83.4%.4 As a percentage of gross domestic product, the Americans were first at 1.7%, with the British in second place with 0.73%.1 Think about that number for a moment—$295 billion. That tells us that as individuals and families, we spent over $24.5 billion a month serving that which is good and life affirming as we understand it. That is twice what our government spends each month on the Iraq War. Is it any wonder we are a nation in conflict?

The biggest chunk of the money, $96.82 billion, or 32.8%, goes to religious organizations. The second largest slice, $29.56 billion, or 13.9%, goes to education, including gifts to colleges, universities, and libraries.

Forty-three percent of Americans are churched (Table 1). It is the largest number and percentage of the population in our history—in colonial times about 12% were affiliated with a church—and the religious views of this group dominate the public political conversation, oppressively to some.4

Table 1. Churched Americansa

	Churched	USA, %	Canada, %
	Attend at least weekly	43	20
	Never/almost never attend	8	38

a From Religious Tolerance.4

Clearly, the bulk of the 32.8% of philanthropy that goes to religious institutions comes from these people. But that is still only a fraction of the whole of people who are motivated by spiritual impulse.

There is another movement—by choice, I think, more hidden. Robert C. Fuller, a professor of Religious Studies at Bradley University and author of Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession and Alternative Medicine in American Religious Life, provides what I think are relevant distinctions in describing the two groups.

Religiousness…was associated with higher levels of interest in church attendance and commitment to orthodox beliefs. Spirituality, in contrast, was associated with higher levels of interest in mysticism, experimentation with unorthodox beliefs and practices, and negative feelings toward both clergy and churches. Most respondents in the study tried to integrate elements of religiousness and spirituality. Yet 19%…constituted a separate category best described as ‘spiritual, not religious.' The ‘spiritual, but not religious' group was less likely to evaluate religiousness positively, less likely to engage in traditional forms of worship such as church attendance and prayer, less likely to engage in group experiences related to spiritual growth, more likely to be agnostic, more likely to characterize religiousness and spirituality as different and nonoverlapping concepts, more likely to hold nontraditional beliefs, and more likely to have had mystical experiences.5

Having spent a lot of time recently with this cohort—amongst whom, in the interest of full disclosure, I count myself—I think it is worth saying something about this group, because when we talk about how faith groups can accomplish socially beneficial roles, we should think in terms larger than just church efforts.

Sitting in a graceful wooden hall in the middle of a forest recently, beautiful antique carved masks spaced at points along the room's elegant wooden walls, I looked around the room at the 100 men and women seated there, mostly middle aged, but with a smattering of people in their 20s and 30s. We had spent a week together, during which time I had come to realize these people were very special. It could quite genuinely be said that they had individually, and sometimes collectively, affected, in a life-affirming way, the lives of millions. With a minimum of fuss, these men and women, some with modest financial resources, some with very great resources, have quietly gone about serving the good as they saw it best.

There is Richard, a painter and musician successful in both fields, but also the scion of great wealth, who convinced his family foundation to save one of America's most engaging and important waterways. It took 10 years and required about $10 million a year, but quietly and persistently the family has addressed the issue, with Richard's direction, and has seen results that change the quality of life for everyone in the great metropolis upon whose shores the waters wash up.

There is Torkin, who saw a woman squatting in the dirt in Uganda's capitol, making beads from waste paper taken from the dump where she lived. Where a thousand had walked by, Torkin saw a way to save the lives of hundreds of AIDs widows, outcast women who are poor even by the standards of Africa. By teaching the women to roll beads, she has made them middle class. In the country whose average annual income is about $350 a year, these women now make $300 a month. Whole villages have been transformed by the wealth derived from creating beauty from trash.

There is Peggy, who along with her friend Charlie began a program empowering youth through the arts, which has touched the lives of hundreds of inner-city and disadvantaged kids. And Jackie who helps them, particularly with the Hispanic kids.

Or there is Chris, whose massive photographs of a compiled image, arranged in an aesthetic way that shows beauty even as it gives a sense of proportion to patterns in our culture. A single pill like a fractal repeated again and again showing how many antidepressants are taken in the United States in a year.

And there could be a sentence about all 100 of these people. You may have noticed that I am being deliberately vague about identifying who they are. I do so out of respect. They choose to do their work with little personal fuss about their being put forward. Many of us might know their foundation or program, but only a few know their names or truly what they have done. And they prefer it that way, which, as I have written here earlier, is a sure sign of people committed to real social transformation, and one of the Eight Laws of Transformation as I described them.6

The spiritual—but not religious—world finds it as easy to gather and pray together as any Christian evangelical gathering. But the prayer is more free form, and the specifics of what an individual believes is simply not an issue. Good works are communal in vision. Sitting there, I think how different this world is from the religious world of social programs, which is often built around public personalities—famous media-figure pastors mostly. Both accomplish good, but the spiritual world's programs are not coercive, present no theological imperative, and are centered around communal effort, not personalities.