The 2012 lists by The Chronicle of Philanthropy look at 2011 giving as a share of 2010 profits to determine which of America’s big companies are the most philanthropic.

According to a 2010 study by AARP, the number of baby boomers and older Americans volunteering outside of a formal organization increased from 34 percent in 2003 to 57 percent in 2009. Seven in 10 boomers reported they are engaged in volunteering either on their own or through an organization, a 20 percent increase over […]

This report by the Corporation for National and Community Service in partnership with the National Conference on Citizenship, shows that Americans significantly increased their commitment to volunteering and civic engagement in 2011, with the national volunteer rate reaching a five-year high.

This 2004 survey of almost 1,400 youth ages 18 to 25 that included Christian, Muslim, Jewish youth and a mix of races and ethnicities – explored attitudes about faith, politics and volunteer service. It found a “strong and intimate” connection between religious faith and volunteerism. 56 percent of those surveyed volunteered in their community in […]

This survey, published in May 2004 by the Leon and Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, interviewed 800 college students about their attitudes toward public and volunteer service, politics and more. 53 percent of college students said they had volunteered in their communities, a drop from 2001, when 68 percent said they did. Volunteering in […]

This 2002 survey from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, found that of the 65.6 percent who said they gave money to help victims of the attack, the average gift was about $134 and half gave small donations of $50 or less. Also, 8.3 percent said they donated time – an average of 17 […]

Sister Margaret Guider, associate professor of missiology at Boston College, is the author of Daughters of Rahab: Prostitution and the Church of Liberation in Brazil (Augsburg Fortress, 1995).

Heidi Hadsell, president of Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn., has written about eco-justice and liberation theology.

Michael Novak, philosopher, theologian and public policy commentator at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, is the author of Questions about Liberation Theology (Paulist Press, 1991). He argued that by the late 1980s, liberation theology was in danger “of slipping into a backwater” because it had done very little to help the poor. He is also author […]