(The Center Square) – During this holiday season, a new report is shedding light on just how charitable the residents of Illinois have been.
The personal finance website WalletHub determined the most charitable of the 50 states by analyzing 19 metrics of charitable behavior, including volunteering and service and charitable giving.
“For volunteering and service, we looked at volunteer rates, volunteer retention rates and just the share of the population who volunteer in different ways,” said WalletHub spokesperson Cassie Happe. “When it came to charitable giving, we looked at how many charities there are per capita, the share of the population donating money and the share of sheltered homeless.”
According to the report, Illinois ranks as the 14th most charitable state in the country.
“As far as those two key dimensions go, Illinois ranks 18th overall for volunteering and service and 14th overall for charitable giving,” said Happe.
Utah is the most charitable state, boasting the highest volunteer rate at 40.7% and the most volunteer hours per capita at 39.42 hours. The study found Utah residents to be the most financially generous out of all the states, donating 3.89% of their income to help those in need.
Rounding out the top 5 most charitable states were Wyoming, Minnesota, Maryland and Maine.
Happe advises people to do their homework before choosing a charity.
“You should really research the organization you’re planning to contribute to just to make sure that they are using their donations for their intended purpose,” said Happe.
