Wealthy Americans Continue to Support the Arts Despite Overall Drop in Giving

(11-10-10) Michael Boehm on Culture Monster:

“Let me tell you about the very rich,” F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in 1926. “They are different from you and me.”

The facts support him still, judging by a study of rich folks’ charitable habits released Tuesday. One of the things that most differentiates them from the rest of us, it reveals, is that they give to the arts.

In their “Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy,” Bank of America and Merrill Lynch found that households with incomes of $200,000 or more, or net worths of at least $1 million (not counting a primary home's value) devoted 7.5 cents out of their charitable dollar to the arts during 2009, compared to a penny for the population at large.

Read the full post here.