Title:
Religion Gets Largest Share of Charity in US
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
Americans gave about two hundred ninety billion
dollars to charity last year. That was ten billion
dollars more than the amount of charitable giving in
two thousand nine. The estimates are from the Giving
USA Foundation and its research partner, the Center
on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Charities are
nonprofit organizations that raise money to provide
social services or other programs. Giving USA has
been reporting on charitable donations since
nineteen fifty-six. The group estimates that about
seventy-five million households gave to at least one
charitable organization in the United States last
year. A household is one or more people living in a
home. The largest share of charitable giving goes to
religious groups. Giving USA says they received
thirty-five percent of all donations in twenty-ten.
Some people give a percentage of their pay to
religious organizations. Schools and other
education-related organizations were second on the
list. They received an estimated fourteen percent of
all charitable giving last year. The federal tax
agency, the Internal Revenue Service, recognizes
donations to official charities. Those who give to
charity may be able to get tax breaks and reduce the
amount of taxes they owe. People who give to charity
may want to know how their donations are being
spent. Organizations like Charity Navigator and the
American Institute of Philanthropy look at how
charities spend the money they receive. Their
reports and ratings offer a measure of how
effectively the charities use their money. For
example, donors can learn how much a group spends on
services, compared to how much it spends on itself
in administrative costs. Charity Navigator recently
asked donors and charities to answer questions about
year-end giving trends this year. More than five
hundred donors and one hundred charities completed
the questionnaire. On average, these charities said
they received forty-one percent of all their
donations in the last few weeks of the year. Charity
Navigator also asked donors about the kinds of
charities they would likely support this holiday
season. Human services rated at the top of the list.
Arts, culture and humanities rated at the bottom.For
VOA Special English, I'm Alex Villarreal. Read,
listen and learn with our programs and English
teaching activities at voaspecialenglish.com and on
the VOA Learning English page on Facebook.
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personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
