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In tight-fisted New England, Maine's generosity stands out

By Jerry Harkavy, Associated Press Writer | November 20, 2005

PORTLAND, Maine --Tight-fisted New Englanders traditionally rank at the bottom in an annual index of charitable giving and this year was no exception. But upper-income Mainers stood out as paragons of generosity.

New Hampshire was the most miserly state for the fourth year running and the seventh year in the past nine, according to the Catalogue of Philanthropy. Massachusetts was runner-up in parsimony and Rhode Island and Connecticut also were among the half-dozen stingiest.

Mississippi retained its title as most generous state, one of several in the Bible Belt that ranked high in the latest Generosity Index, whose methodology has come under criticism and helped give rise to new studies of charitable giving.

The index, which takes into account both "having" and "giving," is based on average adjusted gross incomes and the value of itemized charitable donations reported to the Internal Revenue Service on 2003 tax returns, the latest available.

"We believe that generosity is a function of how much one gives to the ability one has to give," said Martin Cohn, a spokesman for the Catalogue for Philanthropy, a Boston-based nonprofit that publishes a directory of nonprofit organizations.

Using that standard, the 10 most generous states were, in descending order, Mississippi, Arkansas, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Utah, South Carolina and West Virginia.

The 10 stingiest, starting from the bottom, were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Minnesota, Colorado, Hawaii and Michigan.

The latest Generosity Index mirrors the results of the 2004 presidential election and the breakdown between so-called "red" and "blue" states. The 25 most generous states all voted for President Bush; 11 of the 12 stingiest wound up in John Kerry's column.

Mississippi, the poorest state with an average income of $34,720, had average contributions of $4,470, the nation's sixth highest. In New Hampshire, by contrast, incomes averaged $50,952 and contributions $2,607. For the nation as a whole, the corresponding figures were $47,401 and $3,455.

Nevada had the biggest jump in the rankings, from 40th to 28th. Illinois had the sharpest decline, from 31st to 40th.

Maine moved from 32th to 30th, thanks to its improvement in a subset of rankings that weigh the giving-to-having practices of each state's wealthiest residents -- those reporting incomes of $200,000 or more. Maine had been 27th on that list last year but soared to seventh in the latest rankings.

Leaders of Maine's philanthropic community suggest that well-publicized campaigns to preserve environmentally significant portions of the state's northern forests may explain the increase in contributions from the state's well-heeled residents.

"I think that's a possible explanation, but it would be hard to document because many of those gifts are made over a long period, like five years," said Mason Morfit of the Nature Conservancy's Maine chapter. With several land preservation campaigns being conducted in Maine at the time, "my sense is that there was a major increase in substantial gifts during that period," Morfit said.

Because Maine has a relatively small number of residents with incomes in the $200,000-plus range, several people making large gifts could cause a sharp jump in the state's generosity ranking in that income group, said Janet Henry, president of the Maine Philanthropy Center.

Skepticism about the Generosity Index prompted one of the nation's oldest and largest community foundations to sponsor a study designed to counteract what it saw as a built-in bias against high-income states such as Massachusetts and in favor of low-income states like Mississippi.

The Boston Foundation study concluded that the index presents an undeserved image of New England as a region comprised of Yankee skinflints whose charitable instincts are out of sync with the rest of the nation.

"If everyone in Massachusetts gave 100 times as much to charity as we do today and everything else remains the same, we wouldn't get above the bottom half of the chart," said David Trueblood, a spokesman for the foundation. "And no matter what Mississippi did, it couldn't fall below 22nd or 23rd."

The Boston Foundation proposed an alternate measure of generosity based on each state's share of overall charitable contributions and income, adjusted for differences in taxes and living costs. Using that methodology, Massachusetts' generosity ranking last year would be eleventh, instead of 49th.

Another new study, conducted by The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University on behalf of a group of New England sponsors, also boosts the case for residents of the six-state region being less than Scrooge-like.

The study, which supplements IRS data with a survey of representative households, found that individuals in New England give less, on average, to charity than those in other regions, but the percentage of New Englanders who do contribute is higher than the national average. It also found that contributors in New England tend to favor secular, rather than religious, causes.

Cohn said he was disappointed that the Boston Foundation chose to attack the index without understanding that its purpose is to promote discussion about philanthropy and that it never sought to hang a label on any state.

"Our numbers were never purported to be scientific," Cohn said. "Our goal is not to make anybody feel good or feel bad."

Trueblood and Henry agree on the need to avoid finger-pointing. They expressed a desire to move the discussion away from rankings and toward ways to get people to be more generous.

"The rankings get people's attention, but that's not enough," Henry said. "We need to have conversations about the meaning of giving and the impact of giving."

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On the Net:

Catalogue for Philanthropy: http://www.catalogueforphilanthropy.org

The Boston Foundation: http://www.bostonfoundation.org

Maine Philanthropy Center: http://www.mainephilanthropy.org

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