Keeping Track: charitable giving

Inching toward $200 billion

It's been a decade of digging deep. Going back at least three decades, in fact, charitable giving has climbed and even outpaced inflation, according to "Giving USA 2000," an annual report by the Indianapolis-based AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy.

Recent increases - those since the mid-1990s - can be chalked up to a stellar economy and a national focus on philanthropy, says the AAFRC.

A report by the Council of Economic Advisers in Washington offers footnotes on the demographics of giving: Taking into account differences in economic resources, single women are more likely donors than single men, African-Americans more likely than whites. Seniors are called "more generous" than donors in any other age group.

(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society