Both NOZA data and new information published by the Center on Philanthropy show education as top cause for charitable giving

Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy recently released a report indicating that Indiana’s charitable foundations devote 47 percent of their grantmaking to education. This is more than twice the national average.

NOZA data shows a similar trend, with over 16 million of the 36 million nationally-focused charitable giving records going to education causes. This data accounts for all categories of charitable giving: foundation, individual and corporate. Second is Human Services, with nearly 8 million records- which also matches up with Indiana's data. According to the Center, "human services nonprofits, such as food banks and homeless shelters, received $136.6 million, accounting for 14 percent of the total."

For more information on the Center on Philanthropy study check out the Media Page.

Top 9 charitable-giving-record causes in the NOZA database:

1. Education: 16 Million Records
2. Human Services: 8 Million Records
3. Healthcare: 7 Million Records
4. Religious: 4 Million Records
5. Arts & Humanities: 3 Million Records
6. Community Voluntarism/ Advocacy: 3 Million Records
7. Membership Organizations: 1.7 Million Records
8. Environment: 1.5 Million Records
9. Youth Development: 1 Million Records

Jacqui Higgins
NOZA