Big gifts need context.
A $200 million gift sounds enormous. GiveRate™ asks the simpler question: what share did the giver actually give? We put the amount beside the money behind it, show the math, and make the result easy to share.
Same dollars. Different meaning.
The point of GiveRate is not to tell you whether a gift is “good.” It is to show what the gift represented to the person, company or institution making it.
Dollar amount
Great for a headline. By itself, it tells you nothing about the size of the giver.
GiveRate
Now you know the scale: about $2 out of every $100 in the relevant pool.
Same share of $50K
A 2% rate translated to a $50,000 base. Not the same economics — just an intuitive way to feel the percentage.
GiveRate rankings.
Every published rate should be simple enough to explain in one sentence and sourced well enough that another person can reproduce it.
The GiveRate State Almanac.
Start with a few numbers anyone can understand. No composite score: each measure keeps its own denominator, year and source.
How much does your state put behind arts, film, walking + biking, and kids?
Wisconsin
| State | Arts / resident | Arts rank | Film & TV incentive | Walk + bike pool / resident | K–12 / pupil | Share |
|---|
Five historical benchmarks.
Carnegie, Rockefeller and others give the percentages a reference point. Historical rates only appear where the denominator can be explained in plain English.
Why only five? Historical fortunes are messy. GiveRate would rather publish five defensible benchmarks than twenty impressive-looking guesses.
What is your GiveRate?
Your dollar inputs stay in your browser. The shareable result contains the percentage, not your income or giving amounts.
Generosity measured by commitment, not commas.
If you give $10,000 on $100,000 of annual income, your annual GiveRate is 10%.
Show the work.
Reported
Directly stated by the underlying public source.
Calculated
Simple arithmetic from visible sourced inputs.
Estimated
A source-derived estimate or approximate value, labeled as such.
Publication rule: GiveRate reports attributed facts and arithmetic context, not accusations about motive or character. Named-person and named-company methodology, copy and corrections policy should receive media/defamation counsel review before a production launch.