Muslim American Giving Report: Motivations of Giving

Abstract

This report evaluates an adaptive self-report scale regarding what motivates people in the United States to give to charitable causes or organizations by using a theoretical framework of perceived benefits. An exploratory factor analysis on charity motivation scales revealed that religion, in addition to basic socioeconomic demographics such as gender, age, education, race, income, marital status, and geographic location, significantly influence Americans’ motivation to give. The other notable factors were found to be political leaning, civic participation, political conservatism, and involvement in nonprofit service, as they all have an important effect on giving motivation. For this purpose, a representative sample of 1,733 U.S. adults (866 Muslims and 867 non-Muslims) from various ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds were polled to discover more about their giving patterns and what motivates them to contribute. The findings, which mostly aligned with the Muslim American Giving Report 2021 (Siddiqui & Wasif, 2021), indicated Muslims and non-Muslims evidently have different motivations for contributing.