Indian Americans donate 1% of income |
Indian Americans, the wealthiest community in the nation, donate an estimated $1 billion annually to non-profit organizations, but give far less than their potential because of a wariness of how their donor dollars are spent, summated Indiaspora July 17, releasing the results of a first-ever survey of Indian American philanthropy. The survey found a large “giving gap,” of $2-3 billion, and noted that Indian Americans give only one percent of their annual income in charitable contributions. The U.S. population as a whole donates roughly 4%. If Indian Americans contributed at that same rate, they could be donating as much as $3 billion per year. The primary reasons for Indian Americans` philanthropic underperformance are a lack of reliable, accessible information to determine which organizations are reputable; a lack of trust in philanthropic intermediaries, particularly those operating in India; and a cultural attitude that favors `informal` giving to family or friends over giving to social organizations, concluded the survey. Rangaswami noted that more than a quarter of Indian Americans live below the federal poverty line and more than 400,000 are undocumented.
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