This kind of thing is happening all over the place, Eric. And it's been trending that way for some years. Robert Putnam mentioned the decline in chartiable giving as well as service on charitable boards, etc in his book Bowling Alone, that was in 2000. Even though his subtitle was "The Collapse and Revival of American Community" the revival trend has yet to emerge.

It is happening here in Pottstown too and was also the story in Cleveland when I was there.

I wish I had a better story to tell, but I don't, and I don't see one on the horizon either.

Jim, the reality is that charitable giving actually reached a record high in 2004, increasing 5% over 2003. Giving by individuals rose 4.1% and continues to represent the largest piece of the philanthropic pie.

My concern is based on the fact that Midland has always been a very generous community. Our per capita giving to the United Way, for example, is one of the highest in the nation. Plus, we're in the middle of a veritable boom in the lifeblood of our economy. I'm seeing people get rich, literally, in a matter of a few months. The Biblical adage "to whom much is given, much is expected" is perhaps more relevant to our community, today, than anywhere else at this time.

Eric, here's one thing that comes to mind, when looking at the local situation ...

One difference between this boom and the last (I'm talking 20+ years ago) is the corporate presence in our community. As you will remember, in addition to being very generous at the individual/employee level, Arco Oil & Gas was also very generous at the corporate level, matching employees' contributions at a high rate, and allowing some of those employees to devote a lot of their time to United Way campaigns, etc.

And Arco was only one of several majors that had a very large, involved presence in Midland.

It looks different to me, now. The independents have a far greater role now than they did back then, while the presence of the majors - in terms of resident personnel - is a shadow of what it once was. And, while I think they are doing their part ... it's hard to match the the level of financial and in-kind generosity granted to our community through the majors, back in the 80s.

What do you think?

I just returned from a board meeting (padding my resume ;-) where we had this same discussion. Of course, we are not living in a community fueled (sorry) by high gas prices, but our consensus was that this year's money went to help hurricane victims (or at least that's what potential donors want local charities to believe). I pray, and I have faith, that people will continue to recognize that "to whom much is given, much is expected." But maybe not this year.

Jeff, there's no doubt that the corporate exodus has hurt certain areas of charitable giving...the United Way is, I suspect, Exhibit A. But the flipside of your argument is that unlike in past booms, much of the new wealth is going into local pockets instead of the coffers of corporations headquartered elsewhere. I had hoped that those recipients would feel an even greater obligation (or desire) to step up the philanthropy.

I guess one factor I failed to mention, and that Gwynne rightly brings up, is the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in siphoning off contributions that might otherwise have stayed here. Even though the report I linked to in my response to Jim's comment above stated that in 2004, giving to the Asian Tsunami relief efforts was a miniscule percentage of overall donations, the two domestic hurricanes in 2005 had a much greater emotional and financial pull on America as a whole and, I'm sure, our local folks as well.

As far as independents not being able to match the majors, I don't buy that. As generous as the majors were perceived to be, their combined donations were not in the tens of millions of dollars, and probably were less than five million per year. You mentioned ARCO, and I know that its annual local donations budget was much less than $500K, and it had a reputation for being a model of generosity. The kind of cash flow that some independents are generating today makes that look like chump change.

Nevertheless, I don't want to get sidetracked in a majors-vs-independents discussion, because it still boils down to individuals and the decisions they make about philanthropy. Even when the majors were here, it was the employees who made the bulk of the contributions, with corporate matching gifts generally making up the balance.

Gwynne, did I make "padding a resume" sound like a bad thing? My mistake. ;-)

Good discussion...thanks for weighing in!

What I'm not seeing in that linked article is charitable giving as a percentage of household or individual income which the AAFRC elsewhere suggests remains at about 2%, that's 2% of discretionary income! I know from experience in the places I mentioned that your observations, while specific to Midland, seem to hold true where wealth is increasing, even if the increase is not as dramatic.

Combine the stagnant percentage giving with the decrease in "quality of volunteers" you mentioned, notice that this jibes with what is happening around the country, and you've got yourself a veritable stewardship crisis. I'm concerned about the impications for "the future of our quality of life" as a nation.

Jim, "stewardship crisis" is an excellent label for this phenomenon.

It seems to me that good stewardship begins with the recognition of the true abundance one has been blessed with. It then requires some humility and faith to recognize the high calling that accompanies giving things away without immediately understanding if or how they might be replenished.

As a society, we're not really very good at any of those things anymore.

Eric, those are all good and valid points you make, and I don't dispute them ... at least, in general. But I also don't step back from my original suggestion, in general.

Nor do I wish to introduce a majors-vs-indepependents debate that would distract from the main discussion ... my wife happily worked for one back then, and now happily works for the other ...

Let me toss in something else. In my years as a public service director at Big 2, back during the last boom ... even then, there was discussion, at United Way and elsewhere, that we needed to find new stategies, for reaching out to younger contributors ...

The old-timers were - and still are - incredibly generous ... look at the impact Abell-Hangar continue to has to this day ... but, in the 80s, our potential contributors (the new money?) had a different outlook on things, and different - less willing - attitude towards donating to charity.

"How can we make giving fun?" was something I heard more than once.

It's not a question that, I think, bodes well, considering your original post and some of the comments that have followed.

Challenges were showing up back then. And I have noted that campaigns such as United Way have had a harder time - over the last twenty years - than they used to ...

"How can we make giving fun?" was something I heard more than once.

And how are we to reconcile such a question with the time-honored exhortation to "give 'til it hurts"? It appears that the next generation has a lower tolerance for pain. ;-)

Boy, there's a lot of stuff for potential discussion here, ranging from the value of discipline and sacrifice, to the fallout from a culture that embraces the accumulation of debt to fund its lifestyles.

The last 13 months have created an atmosphere of "I've done enough". I live in one of those high priced high living areas. That's the attitude of these people.

I gave at tsunami, I gave at katrina. I've done enough. That's what they are really thinking.

Wealth and Charity are more unrelated than we imagine. In fact some of the most charitable are the least wealthy.

In the end it's about faith. Hunkering down may be part of it. The news media continues to hammer gloom and doom. It takes faith in a future and hope to give. We don't live in that era anymore.

But, as much as anything, the wolf crying of some chaities and giving in response has our populace say, "I gave at the office".

Ebenezer Scrooge still lives.

Are there no prisons.........are the workhouses closed?

Gene, I tend to be a bit more optimistic than that -- Americans still comprise the most generous nation in the world -- but I do agree with all the commenters that the trend we perceive has disturbing long-term implications. The important question is, if the trend is accurately perceived, how can it be turned around?

I don't have the answer. Well, I do, but it's something akin to "we all need to become better persons" and while I know how that can happen, I can't impose that solution on anyone else. We need to be examples and encouragers to one another, somehow; that would be a good starting place. But in the end, as I wrote above, it ultimately is a personal choice.

Eric,

For the most part, I agree with your comments. I do want to speak to one, however - the one about the new Escalades and Hummers around town equating to wealth gained from the rise in oil pricing. You've mentioned this a couple of times in columns. I don't believe the surge of those new vehicles has anything to do with the oil boom or anything so associated. My thoughts are that the Escalade-Hummer upsurge is due to one thing, and one thing only...0% financing combined with the GM "Employee Discount" program, etc.. ANYONE can buy either of those vehicles...though whether they can afford them or not is a different matter altogether. Most salespeople will do anything they can to get someone in a new vehicle - that's their job. There are a few salesmen in the area that will tell their new car shopper "You just can't afford this car" - and those are the salesmen that will be here forever, making friends and repeat customers - those are the gold of the Permian Basin. New cars rarely equal new wealth - just the ability to make a monthly payment. The people I know with real wealth do not play that game.

As to charitable giving, I, too, wish there were more.

Thanks for bringing this to the table.

Janie, my frequent references to those vehicles should be taken as a general metaphor for any non-essential consumer purchase, but your point is well taken about the easy credit and its ability to fool people into thinking they're "wealthy."

At the same time, the dealerships around here have gone on record as saying that they've seen a direct and dramatic increase in their sales tied to the increase in oil and gas prices...and that's across the board, not just GM dealerships.

If that's what people want to do with their money, that's their choice. At some point, though, a community cannot thrive on new car sales alone...again, speaking metaphorically.

The car sales upswing could also be correlated to the children of baby boomers reaching driving age (i.e. the Jim Painter and his daugher new car commercial)...but surely they wouldn't be buying them Hummers and Escalades.

Aaaahhhhhhhhhh...who knows?