Maryland

Maryland is the 4th “Most Charitable State”, Per Report

By MCS Staff

With Americans donating around $500 billion per year to charity, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on the Most Charitable States for 2024, with Maryland coming in as the 4th most charitable state, including 1st in population who donated money. Additional information below:

Generosity in Maryland (1=Most Charitable; 25=Avg.):

  • Overall rank for Maryland: 4th
  • 10th – Charities per Capita
  • 6th – % of Donated Income
  • 26th – % of Population Who Donated Time
  • 1st – % of Population Who Donated Money
  • 24th – % of Population Collecting/Distributing Food
  • 29th – Volunteer Rate
  • 15th – Volunteer Hours per Capita

It also released a Charity Calculator to help donors decide where and how to give. In order to determine the most philanthropic states, WalletHub compared the 50 states across two key dimensions, “Volunteering & Service” and “Charitable Giving.” WalletHub evaluated those dimensions using 19 key metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the “most charitable.”Finally, they determined each state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order the states.

Volunteering & Service – Total Points: 50

  • Volunteer Rate: Full Weight (~4.17 Points)
  • Volunteer Retention Rate: Full Weight (~4.17 Points)
  • Volunteer Hours per Capita: Triple Weight (~12.50 Points)
  • Community-Service Requirement for High School Graduation: Full Weight (~4.17 Points)
  • Share of Population Who Do Favors for Their Neighbors: Full Weight (~4.17 Points)
  • Amount of Money that People Would Lend Their Neighbors in Need: Full Weight (~4.17 Points)
  • Share of Population Collecting/Distributing Food: Full Weight (~4.17 Points)
  • Share of Population Collecting/Distributing Clothes: Full Weight (~4.17 Points)
  • Share of Population Fundraising or Selling Items to Raise Money: Full Weight (~4.17 Points)
  • Share of Population Who Engage in General Labor (Supply Transportation for People): Full Weight (~4.17 Points)

Charitable Giving – Total Points: 50

  • Share of Income Donated: Double Weight (~11.11 Points)
    Note: “Income” refers to aggregate gross income.
  • Share of Population Donating Time: Full Weight (~5.56 Points)
    Note: “Donors” refers to the share of the population who claim to have donated time.
  • Share of Population Donating Money: Full Weight (~5.56 Points)
    Note: “Donors” refers to the share of taxpayers who donated money to charity and the percentage of the population who claim to have donated money.
  • Public Charities per Capita: Half Weight (~2.78 Points)
    Note: “Public Charities” is based on the Internal Revenue Service’s definition of the term. Among others, these charities include “churches, hospitals, qualified medical research organizations affiliated with hospitals, schools, colleges and universities.” They do not include private foundations, most of which do not engage in “the direct operation of charitable programs.” However, religious organizations were included in the data for the following reasons: 1) the available data does not differentiate between secular charities and religious organizations, and 2) many donors and volunteers consider their contributions to such entities as “charitable giving.”
  • Top-Rated Charities per Capita: Half Weight (~2.78 Points)
  • Charity Regulations: Full Weight (~5.56 Points)
  • Google Search Interest for “Charitable Donations”: Full Weight (~5.56 Points)
    Note: This metric measures the real intent of the population to find information using the following search terms: “volunteer”, “non profit organizations”, “charity”, “charitable donations” and “charitable organizations”. “Real intent” is measured using the average monthly search volumes for those specific terms.
  • ‘Feeding America’ Food Banks per Capita: Full Weight (~5.56 Points)
  • Share of Sheltered Homeless: Full Weight (~5.56 Points)

  Sources: Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Education Commission of the States (ECS), Harbor Compliance, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, The Internal Revenue Service, Feeding America, Windows USA, AmeriCorps, GreatNonprofits, Google Ads and Gallup.