Free Republic

BOSTON -- A new study on the generosity of Americans suggests that states with the least religious residents are also the stingiest about giving money to charity. The study released Monday by the Chronicle of Philanthropy found that residents in states where religious participation is higher than the rest of the nation, particularly in the South, gave the greatest percentage of their discretionary income to charity.

America’s religious and private philanthropic organizations are under attack from the left. Money begets power in almost every endeavor of human life. The couple with the largest down payment receive the lowest mortgage interest rate. Those with the reputation as big tippers get the best tables and service at restaurants. The business with the healthiest cash reserve has the power to not only prosper but also to gobble up its competitors during lean times. As true as this maxim is in the private sector, it’s even more prevalent in government circles. Politicians buy votes by offering “free stuff” to their...

They may seem drastically different: a nonprofit that helps children build lemonade stands, an organization that encourages character building through sports and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But they all have the same underlying goal: to promote economic self-reliance. The LDS Church Thursday was the last stop on a nationwide tour highlighting best practices in economic self-reliance. During a two day conference sponsored by The Philanthropy Roundtable, representatives from charitable foundations across the country took a tour through Welfare Square, the LDS Humanitarian Center and the Bishop's Central Storehouse.

Every night before he goes to sleep, the president of the United States reads 10 letters from the pile of 20,000 sent to him by Americans every day. Sometimes, he writes back. He's even, on occasion, included a check. "It's not something I should advertise, but it has happened," President Barack Obama told reporter Eli Saslow, author of the new book, "Ten Letters: The Stories Americans Tell Their President." Saslow has spent a year poring over the presidential mail, sent from Americans weathering the desperate economic climate. There's Natoma Canfield, the cleaning woman battling cancer who can't afford to pay...

For one of the nation’s most famous billionaires, Steve Jobs kept a low profile as a charitable donor. Unlike fellow tech leaders Bill Gates of Microsoft and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, he did not sign the Giving Pledge, the effort under which the nation’s richest individuals commit to giving at least half of their wealth to philanthropy. His name is absent from the list of gifts of $1 million or more maintained by Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy. And it wasn’t until after an unflattering media report aboutJobs on the subject over the summer that Apple in September initiated a...

Parker Brothers made millions of dollars marketing the table game Monopoly. It takes two to three hours to play a round of the game. Its history can be traced back to 1904 where it was developed as a teaching tool to explain the single tax theory. Poker is a game where betting begins with some form of forced bet by one of the players. Each player is betting that the hand he has will be the highest ranked. Each of the other players must either match the maximum previous bet or fold. Both games include one striking similarity . ....

The Yomiuri Shimbun/AP Images A 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck Miyagi Prefecture, in the northern part of Japan. In the tsunami that followed, a huge tidal wave covered Kesennuma Port. Updated on March 13; items added since Friday are marked with a bullet •The strongest-ever earthquake to hit Japan triggered a tsunami on Friday  that moved across the Pacific Ocean. Japanese news outlets are reporting that about 1,800 people are confirmed dead, and some sources fear the toll could be as high as 10,000.Following are updates based on items submitted by charitable organizations and other sources. The Chronicle has not independently...

The Rich Aren't Quite So Evil Please see the link below to a piece titled, "The Rich Aren't Quite So Evil", which discusses the philanthropic nature of the rich. http://www.redstate.com/stafko/2010/12/12/the-rich-arent-quite-so-evil/ Chad

Earlier this week on Tuesday morning, the top folks at Trinity Mother Frances Health System in Tyler hosted a breakfast for the purpose of making a big announcement. Mr. & Mrs. Louis Owen have made a cash gift to Trinity Mother Frances of $18 million for the purpose of building a seven-story, free-standing heart hospital that will be named in their honor. As I sat there listening to the presentation and looking at the artist’s renderings of the facility, slated for completion in 2012, I couldn’t help thinking that people like Louis and Peaches Owen are among the very people...

A billionaire has pledged to donate his entire fortune to charity after his death, becoming the first in China to do so. Chen Guangbiao, chairman of Jiangsu Huangpu Renewable Resources Utilisation, took the decision to give up his mammoth wealth on a charity call made by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investment baron Warren Buffett. Chen said in an open letter to Gates and Buffett posted on his company website on Sunday that he would donate his entire fortune of more than five billion yuan ($735 million) to charity when he dies, the China Daily reported Tuesday. Since they launched...

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates called Wednesday on their billionaire peers to give away half of their wealth. The pronouncement by Messrs. Buffett and Gates stems from a series of dinners the two men held over the past year to discuss the effects of the recession on philanthropy with some of the nation's richest people, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, investor Ronald O. Perelman and David Rockefeller, his family's patriarch. The result of the dinners is an invitation, called the Giving Pledge, which asks the nation's billionaires to publicly commit to give at least half of their wealth to...

We like to think the reasons for seeking wealth are universal. Humans, by nature, like to be comfortable, like to have power and like to have the choices and freedoms offered by lots of stuff and money. Yet it turns out there are some regional variations in the meaning of wealth around the world. The new Barclay’s Wealth Insights study, released this morning from Barclay’s Wealth and Ledbury Research, finds that the emerging-market rich view wealth very differently from the older-money Europeans and the slightly less nouveaux Americans.

I'm sorry for the vanity...and all of the topics it's posted in...but not really. ;o) I searched for this particular topic, and couldn't find it. John Rich has donated a song written and recorded yesterday to benefit the folks in the Nashville area. He's giving the song download away...free..., but asks that you click the link to donate. We have many Tennessee FReepers here, and some in Nashville who could use oould use your help. I hope those of you who are able to will join me.

Ben-Peter Terpstra writes on why conservatives tend to give more than left-of-centre liberals. I can see why Ann Coulter detests the compassionate conservative label. Indeed, it sounds as patronising as the articulate black label because conservatism is compassionate, period. In Makers and Takers Peter Schweizer explains (page 70): Over the past fifteen years, the General Social Survey has consistently shown that religious conservatives are 25 percentage points more likely than [left-of-centre] liberals to donate money to help the poor and are 23 points more likely to volunteer time for that cause. As Arthur Brooks points out, the annual gap in...

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, reported an adjusted gross income of $333,182 for 2009. They paid $71,147 in federal income taxes, $12,420 in Delaware income taxes and $1,477 in Virginia income taxes. The Bidens gave $4,820 to charity, in cash and in-kind donations

Next are two short excerpts from a recently filmed TED presentation (Feb 2010) by none other than Bill "Microsoft" Gates. At the heart of Gates' address lies the central Global Warming dogma, which dictates that Co2 emitted by human beings are the primary culprit for the unwanted heating of the globe. Since this artificial alleged human-induced heating effect allegedly stands to devastate the planet if left unabated, Global Warming dogma proponents therefore argue that human Co2 emissions must be drastically reduced. As Gates casually addresses the issue, he goes on to state that one way to accomplish this goal is...

If you didn’t believe the United States had been the victim of the conspiracy of usurpation from within by now, you will after this interview conducted by G. Edward Griffin in 1982. Griffin interviewed Norman Dodd, a Congressional investigator heading the 1953 Reese Committee, charged with investigating tax-exempt foundations and charitable organizati0ns the United States. Why investigate those organizations who ‘do so much good‘ in society, like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the Carnegie Endowment, or the Guggenheim Fund? The investigation focused on whether any of these organizations were undertaking un-American activities, which were defined through the Committee as ‘activities...

Bill Gates has made his scholarship fund off limits to white teenagers. The Gates Millennium Scholarship fund is financed by a $1 Billion endowment Bill Gates made in 1999. The fund explicitly denies eligibility to white students. “Students are eligible to be considered for a GMS scholarship if they: Are African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander American, or Hispanic American;"

Bill Gates made the largest ever single charitable donation when he pledged $10billion (£6billion) to develop and distribute vaccines. The Microsoft founder hopes the money, to be spent over the next ten years through his foundation, will save the lives of more than eight million children in the world's poorest countries. 'We must make this the decade of vaccines,' he said. 'Vaccines already save and improve millions of lives. 'Innovation will make it possible to save more children than ever before.'

What do Alyssa Milano, Sandra Bullock, Lance Armstrong, Gisele Bundchen, the country of Senegal and — very possibly — you have in common? All — including you — have donated more funds to the Haitian relief effort than oil-rich nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran. That's right ... if you personally have donated money to help the earthquake-stricken people of Haiti, then you have contributed more money than the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran, whose combined dollar donation is a big fat zero.