Minority Philanthropy: The Future Has Arrived (Susan Raymond, Ph.D.)
on May 9th, 2006 at 12:14 am“In the African American community, the philanthropic spirit is not, admittedly, a “new new thing.” Charitable giving in the black community dates from at least the late 1700s, when Richard Allen and Absalom Jones founded societies of free men to support poor widows and orphans.”
“In metropolitan Boston, with the fastest growing urban black population in the nation, household incomes among blacks rose 40.2 percent in the 1990s. This change is striking in comparison to the overall Massachusetts increase of only 16 percent and the national increase of 11 percent. Nationally, 25 percent of African American households are in the top two quintiles (top 40 percent) of income. In the black community, 53 percent of households made charitable donations in 1997, up from 51 percent in 1993. This contrasts with a decline in the national average from 73 percent to 69 percent in the same period. Some 60 percent of African American giving flows through church communities.” (more…)
