Philanthropy has been a long-standing practice in America, and the Charities Aid Foundation ranked the U.S. third in its World Giving Index 2022, but where in the country can you actually find the most giving people? Well, the team at EmpireStakes.com took a break from coverage of New York sports betting to figure it out.
Ranking each state based on a number of factors per capita, including charitable contributions, the number of charity organizations, and charity-related searches, we’ve managed to give them a score out of 100. Wondering where New York might rank, or just which states are the most charitable? Just keep on reading to find out!
New York Misses Out on Top 3
While it might be home to various philanthropic foundations, nonprofits, and other charities, New York just missed out on a top 3 spot scoring a still impressive 85.41 in our index.
Most notably, the home of NY sports betting apps has the second highest number of charity or voluntary sector employees in the U.S., just behind Rhode Island. New Yorkers also appear to be more than happy to donate to a good cause with the state ranking sixth overall for charitable contributions, totaling around $3.45 million.
Top 5 Most Charitable States Revealed
With a whopping index score of 90.36 out of 100, Vermont manages to make its way into the top spot in our research. This is largely thanks to the state ranking first for the most public charity organizations as well as second for online searches related to donation sites and other charity-related terminology. One area where Vermont could improve, though, is charitable contributions as the state actually ranks 45th out of 50 in our index, and, in turn, brings down their overall index score.
Maine secured the second spot after gaining an index score of 88.16. Boasting the fifth-largest number of public charity organizations, the state also ranks sixth for the number of people working in charity or the voluntary sector.
In third is Massachusetts after racking up a total score of 87.43. There are 14,657 public charity organizations located in the state, working out at around 2.1 per person, which makes it the third highest amount in the country. They’re not short of help running these organizations either and rank third for having the most charity and voluntary sector employees.
Meanwhile, just behind New York and rounding out the top 5 is Texas scoring 82.12. While it doesn’t manage to break into the top 10 for any particular ranking factor, Texans are still doing their part to help with 254 food banks and over 25,000 public charity organizations.
Methodology
To discover America’s most charitable states, we acquired data on several key factors: Charitable contributions, number of charity organizations, number of people employed in the charity/voluntary sector, Google search volume for Top 100 U.S. Charities, Google search volume for donation sites and search interest for charities, shelter support, food bank support, fundraising and volunteering. These factors consisted of 10 individually weighted metrics, which added to the value of 100.
- Charitable Donations (Per Capita) = 20 (the number of total charitable donations, according to IRS).
- Number of Public Charity Organizations (Per Capita) = 15
- Charity/Voluntary Sector Employees (Per Capita) = 15
- Google Searches for Top 100 Charities (Per Capita) = 12.5
- Google Searches for Donation Sites (Per Capita) = 12.5
- Google Search Interest – popularity of keywords: “Charites” = 5; “Shelter Support” = 5; “Food Bank Support” = 5; “Fundraising Support” = 5; “Volunteering Support” = 5.
We combined the weighted scores of each factor, for each state, to provide a final index score out of 100. The higher the score, the more giving the state.
Author
The experts at EmpireStakes who bring you the latest updates in New York sports betting as well as the state's casinos. We pull together decades of experience to give you analysis as well as comparisons of the best NY online gambling apps.
