Community Corner

Fort Lee Ranks High in Charitable Giving, Study Shows

The Chronicle of Philanthropy published a study ranking towns nationwide when it comes to giving to charitable organizations. Fort Lee ranked above average when compared to county, state and national levels of giving.

Fort Lee ranks 882 out of 28,725 towns across the country when it comes to charitable giving, according to a report called “How America Gives” put together by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

People in Fort Lee gave a combined total of $27 million last year, the report indicates.

The study was based on Internal Revenue Service records of Americans who itemized their deductions, provides ZIP-code level detail about the percentage of discretionary income that people in states, cities, and towns are giving to charity.

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The Chronicle of Philanthropy published an interactive map that can be used to find the charitable contributions of towns across the entire country.

One of the major findings of the study was that lower income households tended to give more, a trend that held true in Fort Lee.

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The highest percentage of contributions – 10.4 percent – came from households with a median income in the $50,000 to $100,000 range; 4.1 percent came from those making between $100,000 and $200,000 and 2.6 percent from those with household incomes of $200,000 or more.

The median contribution in Fort Lee was about $2,494, which represents about 5.2 percent of the median discretionary income of $48,337. 

Fort Lee came in above average on the national level, which showed a median contribution of $2,564 compared to a median income of $54,783, or 4.7 percent. It was also well above the state average of $2,181 as the median contribution compared to a median income of $59,113, or 3.7 percent.

In Bergen County, Fort Lee is also above the average median contribution of $2,413 compared to the median discretionary income of $52,114, or 4.6 percent.

The study found that both religious and political factors may have contributed to the giving of people across the country. Utah, a red state, came in at the top of states with contributions at 10 percent, while New Hampshire, a blue state, ranked lowest among the 50 states with a 2.5 percent contribution rate.

New Jersey, also a blue state, ranked near the bottom among the 50 states.

According to the findings the parts of the country that tend to be more religious, tend to give more. Donors in southern states, for instance, gave roughly 5.2 percent of their discretionary income to charity—both to religious and to secular groups—compared with donors in the Northeast, who gave 4.1 percent, the report shows.


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