Calculating Charitable Value
Just before the holidays I stumbled upon this giving calculator via the #nptech hashtag and NPR. While it is interesting to nonprofits (and data geeks) its real intent is to inspire every day individuals to give.
If you take the most average American’s stats, here’s how it would look:
- Average American household income for 2011: $50,054
- Average American family size: about 3 people
- Median age among Americans: about 37
- Average age of retirement: 60
- Average percent of income Americans give to charity: about 5%
According to this particular calculator, that means the a lifetime charitable value of $57,562.
Now we can argue all day and all night about the accuracy of the calculator or of the averages and medians I used. But the bottom line remains more or less the same: the average donor should not be underestimated.
