Virginia Ranked One Of Most Generous States In 2017

Congratulations Virginia, you have generous hearts and share your blessings with neighbors. The state ranks seventh in a new list of the most charitable states in the nation.

Virginia ranked No. 16 overall for the amount of volunteering and service done by residents, and was ranked No. 7 for charitable giving.

With Nov. 28 being #GivingTuesday as a way to combat consumerism and help communities and nearly a third of all annual giving taking place in December, WalletHub on Tuesday released its report on 2017's Most Charitable States as well as a Charity Calculator to help donors maximize their philanthropic impact.

To determine the most generous states, WalletHub compared them based on 14 key metrics including volunteer rates, the percentage of taxpayers who donated to charity, and the percentage of sheltered homeless.

WalletHub's ranking of 2017's Most & Least Charitable States names Utah as the most generous state for the third straight year, followed by Maryland, Minnesota, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Washington, and Virginia. Rounding out the top 10 were South Dakota, Georgia, and Oklahoma.

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The 10 least charitable states are: Kentucky, Montana, California, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Hawaii, according to the website.

The latest World Giving Index shows that Americans are among the world's most generous people, ranking No. 5 out of 140 countries, according to the WalletHub newsrelease. U.S. donors in 2016 gave more than $389 billion to charity, with 72 percent of the money coming directly from individuals, according to the National Philanthropic Trust.

Americans do more than give money to help others, they also contribute their time. Nearly 63 million people volunteer in the U.S., serving a combined total of 7.9 billion hours per year, the equivalent of $184 billion of service.

Methodology
WalletHub says: In order to determine the most philanthropic states, WalletHub's analysts compared the 50 states across two key dimensions, including "Volunteering & Service" and "Charitable Giving".

We evaluated those dimensions using 14 key metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the "most charitable."

Finally, we determined each state's weighted average across all metrics to calculate its total score and used the resulting scores to rank-order the states.

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