How the Wealthy View Philanthropy

The Russell Sage Foundation, a team of researchers at Northwestern University and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, surveyed 104 individuals in Chicago with a median worth of $7.5 million for a paper titled “Wealthy Americans, Philanthropy, and the Common Good.”

The survey was meant to gain insight into how the very wealthiest of Americans think about philanthropy, government, and how to solve the nation’s biggest problems. The following numbers are excerpted from that report.

50

Percent of respondents who said they had contacted at least one government official in the past year

41

Percent of respondents who attended a campaign speech or event in the last four years

68

Percent of respondents who donated to a political cause or campaign in the last four years

20

Percent of respondents who have bundled contributions from other people for a party or political cause

32

Percent of respondents who cited budget deficits as the most important problem facing the country today

65

Percent of respondents who cited only cutting spending as the way to trim deficits

90

Percent of respondents who had done volunteer work in the last year

4

Percent of annual income that the median respondent to the survey reported giving to charity