"Peter Charles" wrote in message
...


It's the problem when mean is used to produce an index like this.


Not claiming to be an expert on contributions and giving but I've been
taking a crash course in it so I can help lead a $2.5 million fund drive to
help rebuild a small community hospital in sothern Michigan. There are some
key items in this brief report which I think should be disclosed before
taking it as anything other than a computed index of giving based largely
upon a sample of tax returns.

1. Data comes from the IRS charitable deduction totals. Short form filers
who give but not enough to meet the standard deduction would not be included
in the data...

and

2. As it has been noted, the states have a higher portion of church
attendees with a mindset of giving to their church. The charitable
contributions in the IRS line would lump United Way and Cancer Society
donations with tithes to the local First Baptist Church since donations
qualify as a charitable donation. The United Way hits the news when it
starts spending 25% or more on overhead, it is not uncommon for churches to
use most of their contributions to operate the church and a much smaller
percentage ends up go to mission and outreach. I've seen it as small as 3%.

and lastly

3. Another commonality to many of the blue states is they have higher
property and income taxes than do the southern states, not to debate the
relative merits/non merits of the situation, but that does impact the amount
left for contributions.