If you were asked how charitable your city is, would it be at the top or bottom of the list? It’s always interesting to see where various American cities fall on the list of charitable giving. Certainly, one would expect that cities that struggle with their own economic hardships would be less charitable than those with more financial stability. In a study in 2020 by Charity Navigator, they looked at the largest charities in the top 30 metropolitan locations. They evaluated spending in: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis/ St. Paul, Nashville, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Washington, DC.
These markets generate 64% of the revenue and 66% of the spending for charities in America. They found, among other results, that the highest rated cities for charitable giving were: Pittsburgh, Houston, Dallas, San Francisco and Kansas City; the lowest rated locations were Baltimore, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Nashville.
There were many other interesting finds in their analysis as well, and the entire report is worth reading.
