Answer: 

1. Religious organizations
2. Education (includes K-12 schools, higher education and libraries)
3. Human services (includes food banks, homeless shelters, youth services, sports organizations) 

Questions:

• What do you think motivates people to give money to organizations like this? 
• In addition to money, many people choose to volunteer for organizations they believe in. Have you ever volunteered? Why or why not? 
• What types of organizations would you/have you donated time or money to in the past few years? 

Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.

Behind the numbers (GivingUSA): 

Total charitable giving grew 5.1% measured in current dollars over the revised total of $448.66 billion contributed in 2019. Adjusted for inflation, total giving increased 3.8%. (Please see below for a more detailed breakdown of the numbers for each philanthropic source and sector.)...

• Giving to religion grew slightly by 1.0% between 2019 and 2020, with an estimated $131.08 billion in contributions. Adjusted for inflation, giving to religion was flat, reflecting a slight decline of 0.2% in 2020.
• Giving to education is estimated to have increased 9.0% to $71.34 billion. Adjusted for inflation, giving to education organizations increased 7.7%. Education giving includes contributions to K-12 schools, higher education and libraries. A strong end-of-year stock market drove growth in giving to education. That growth was further boosted by COVID-19 relief, racial justice giving and MacKenzie Scott’s gifts to HBCUs, tribal colleges, Hispanic-serving institutions and community colleges.
• Giving to human services increased by an estimated 9.7% in 2020, totaling $65.14 billion. Adjusted for inflation, giving to human services organizations increased by 8.4%.

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Check out the NGPF Mini-Unit: Philanthropy to supplement this Question of the Day!

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Only one day left...have your students predict the November monthly jobs number before Friday at 8:30am ET. Details here.

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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