How America Gives

Biggest Changes in Generosity

October 5, 2014

This article was updated on January 13, 2015. See our editor’s note.

Of the 50 largest metropolitan areas and the 50 largest states, these showed the biggest changes in share of income donated to charity.

Metro Areas

5 That Gave More in 2012 than in 2006

Metro area	Giving rate, 2012	Change in giving since 2006
Las Vegas	2.8%	+14.9%
Jacksonville, Fla.	3.8%	+8.7%
Memphis	5.1%	+6.7%
Atlanta	4.0%	+6.5%
Indianapolis	3.2%	+5.2%

5 That Gave Less in 2012 than in 2006

Metro area	Giving rate, 2012	Change in giving since 2006
Buffalo-Niagara Falls, N.Y.	2.3%	-10.6%
Philadelphia	2.5%	-10.3%
Los Angeles	2.8%	-9.5%
Washington	2.8%	-9.5%
Minneapolis-St. Paul	2.6%	-9.4%

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This article was updated on January 13, 2015. See our editor’s note.

Of the 50 largest metropolitan areas and the 50 largest states, these showed the biggest changes in share of income donated to charity.

Metro Areas

5 That Gave More in 2012 than in 2006

Metro area	Giving rate, 2012	Change in giving since 2006
Las Vegas	2.8%	+14.9%
Jacksonville, Fla.	3.8%	+8.7%
Memphis	5.1%	+6.7%
Atlanta	4.0%	+6.5%
Indianapolis	3.2%	+5.2%

5 That Gave Less in 2012 than in 2006

Metro area	Giving rate, 2012	Change in giving since 2006
Buffalo-Niagara Falls, N.Y.	2.3%	-10.6%
Philadelphia	2.5%	-10.3%
Los Angeles	2.8%	-9.5%
Washington	2.8%	-9.5%
Minneapolis-St. Paul	2.6%	-9.4%

States

5 That Gave More in 2012 than in 2006

State	Giving rate, 2012	Change in giving since 2006
Nevada	2.68%	+12.6%
Idaho	4.09%	+6.5%
Georgia	4.2%	+6.1%
Connecticut	2.34%	+4.0%
Florida	3.22%	+3.9%

5 That Gave Less in 2012 than in 2006

State	Giving rate, 2012	Change in giving since 2006
Washington, D.C.	3.15%	-24.5%
North Dakota	2.37%	-15.7%
Delaware	2.67%	-15.2%
New Jersey	2.01%	-13.0%
Maine	1.95%	-12.2%

Source: Chronicle analysis of Internal Revenue Service data

Editor’s Note: In this and other stories on How America Gives, we used ZIP-code data from the IRS to make comparisons between 2006 and 2012, the only years for which income and charitable donation data were available broken out by income and geography. However, to protect privacy, the IRS suppresses some ZIP-code data when there are fewer than 20 filers in a given income group. As a result, some figures are lower than what they’d otherwise be.

Since our original report, we’ve updated our interactive with county-level data for 2012, which do not have any data suppressed. Unfortunately, such data are not available for 2006.

Many of the figures used in this and other How America Gives stories are based on the original 2006 and 2012 ZIP-code data to make those year-over-year comparisons.

For the latest and most accurate 2012 data, see our interactive.