Browsing by Author "Brown, Melissa"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Estimating Charitable Deductions in Giving USA
    (8/12/2002) Deb, Partha; Wilhelm, Mark; Rooney, Patrick; Brown, Melissa
    Giving USA’s annual estimates of charitable giving in the United States are widely used by practitioners, policy-makers, academics, and the media. In addition, each edition’s estimate of giving for the previous year is the first indication of generosity in that year, and, as such, generates much publicity. Over 60 percent of this estimate is based upon the amount claimed as charitable deductions on federal income taxes. However, this amount is not known prior to the publication of Giving USA and therefore must itself be estimated. Different time-series models have been used in past editions of Giving USA to generate this estimate, but the quality of the estimates from these models has never been systematically examined. This paper describes the model used in Giving USA 2002 to estimate charitable deductions in 2001 and explains the criteria by which that model was selected. The paper also presents a systematic comparison of this model to others previously used in Giving USA. Over the 1990s, the most recent period for which an evaluation of the models is possible, the three most recent Giving USA models would have performed well. However, of these, the model presented herein would have provided somewhat more accurate estimates.
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    Gender differences in charitable giving
    (2010) Mesch, Debra; Moore, Zach; Brown, Melissa; Hayat, Amir Daniel
    This paper examines the mechanisms for giving by investigating the psychological and values differences between men and women’s motivations for giving. We explored two of the eight mechanisms for giving developed by Bekkers and Wiepking as a framework for why people give—principle of care and empathic concern. Are there differences in these motives for giving by gender, and can these differences in values and the psychological benefits that people receive when making donations explain gender differences in charitable giving? Are women more likely to give and give more than men because of their higher levels of empathic concern and principle of care? We used two US national data sets to test our hypotheses. Our results for both data sets indicate significant differences in motives by gender, as well as differences in the probability of giving and amount given by gender, even after controlling for empathic concern and principle of care measures. Our findings are discussed in terms of the importance of viewing charitable giving through a gender lens as well as practical implications for practitioners.
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    The Impact of Giving Together
    (2009-05) Eikenberry, Angela M.; Bearman, Jessica; Han, Hao; Brown, Melissa; Jensen, Courtney
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    The Impact of Giving Together: A Snapshot
    (2009) Eikenberry, Angela M.; Bearman, Jessica; Brown, Melissa; Han, Hao; Jensen, Courtney
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    Reconciling Estimates of Religious Giving
    (2004-11) Brown, Melissa; Harris, Joseph Claude; Rooney, Patrick
    Since religious organizations have long been the single largest type of recipient of American giving, the authors undertook in 2003 to examine the Giving USA estimating procedure for giving to religion and compare Giving USA estimates with other approaches for estimating contributions to religion. The yearbook of philanthropy since 1955, Giving USA uses research done by other organizations to estimate giving to religion. Two studies form the basis of Giving USA's estimates. The first is a report from INDEPENDENT SECTOR, which used a national survey of congregations and estimated total giving to religion of $50 billion for 1986. The second is the annual rate of change in giving to religion, which is derived from denominational reports compiled annually by the National Council of Churches of Christ-USA. Since 2002, data about Catholic parish giving has been incorporated into the denominational list that is the basis of the estimated rate of change in giving to religion year to year.