Citizen-to-citizen generosity makes America different

Part one of a five-part series Americans are the most generous people on Earth. Eighty-nine percent of us make a charitable donation each year. Generosity is our most widely shared value, committed by the wealthy and the not-so-wealthy and across all races and ethnicities.

Americans give to causes that compel our attention regardless of our personal connections. Of course, we give to support causes that we are personally connected to: religious communities, schools, and to problems or diseases that we have confronted. But we also give to those we share nothing with.