I'm not trying to make this political, but I sometimes wonder how much of our charitable exceptionalism is related to the US having a weaker social safety net than many industrialized countries.

Whereas an American might donate to a food bank, homeless shelter, disaster relief, etc., a European might consider those activities the proper role of government and expect their (higher) taxes to go towards remedying the situation.

So, it might be that all industrialized nations share the belief that we should take care of our fellow man, help the needy, etc. Some believe it should be mandated and codified in the laws and policies of a nation; others believe it should be optional and driven by individuals.

I would second this interpretation.

When I lived in Germany I wanted to do some volunteer work and read up on the possibilities. A local explained to me, "Offering to volunteer at the library or a school sounds as strange to a German as someone in the US offering to volunteer with street sweeping, or with the IRS. That's the job of the government. That's what taxes are for."

Someone volunteering at a library can be seen as a rich person taking away a paid job opportunity for a poor person.

This tends to break out along political lines.

Christians, people who lean right, etc tend to give to social welfare organizations like the Salvation Army, Goodwill, foodbanks, etc. Basically groups that help out individuals.

Atheists, people who lean left, etc tend to give to artistic or societal organizations like a symphony, Greenpeace, etc.

I think the reasoning for this is simple. People on the right believe it is up to individuals to solve these problems and don't want the government involved. People on the left believe it is the government's role to solve these problems so they address their interests elsewhere.

D'you have a source?

Sure, googling for "charitable contributions by political party" gives the original article I was thinking of:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/10/21/s...

which I favored as opposed to the various studies that show Liberals tend to give less often and in smaller amounts of both time and money: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/giving-back-_n_3781... and http://www.nationalreview.com/home-front/357562/which-politi...

> It may be the country's Christian leanings that contribute to this

Maybe so. I was taught to tithe 10% of everything I earned starting with my grade school allowance. 10% to God (which could go to a church or charity) and 25% to the bank. Everything else got spent on Legos and whatnot.

Fast forward twenty years (I'm 25) and I still siphon away 10% of my income into a separate account that I save for either church donations or charitable causes. At that point the money isn't really "yours" or at least that's what is typically taught in Christian culture. Makes it a lot easier to spend it on others.

Yeah, I seem to recall that the US gives a similar % of income as other countries once you subtract out donations to churches and to universities, which are both a much bigger thing than in other countries.

You're probably thinking of other Western countries. Remember that most Western countries have moral code derived from Christian morals.

What I mean is that if you look at countries with say top 50 GDP, many of them will be much lower than the "other western countries".

Monies donated to charity are also tax-deductible in US, and as a result the nonprofit sector is well-organized in terms of public outreach and so forth. One of the minor culture shocks I experienced coming to the US (from the UK) was the variety of billboards, radio, and TV ads encouraging people to donate their car, or boat, or whatever to this or that charity. At first I wondered why so many different charities were involved in giving cars to poor people, until someone explained that it was because you could (then) deduct the general market rate for the make and model of car involved. Nowadays they require more detailed documentation, eg the nonprofit has to give the donor a copy of the bill of sale within 30 days so that the donor knows how much to deduct. Turns out that some generous souls were inflating the size of their charitable donation on the tax forms in order to reduce their tax liability.

I also can't help noticing that some people who extol the virtues of religious giving are strenuously opposed to any expansion of government services, and seem to consider the whole idea of government taxation an intolerable confiscation of their money and thus an infringement upon their liberty. Such folk don't buy into the notion of a secular social contract between the state and the citizenry, and I often wonder if it because they see the state as being in competition with the religious establishment.