NEW DELHI, INDIA, January 31, 2003: An average Indian-American contributes up to US$300 a year for social causes in India. If just half the Indian population in the US donated that much, India would receive more than $250 million for social causes every year, says a survey on the giving patterns of the Indian diaspora conducted by the Charities Aid Foundation India. According to R. Gopa Kumar, author of the study, more and more of the 1.7 million Indian Americans are keen to increase their charitable giving to 10 times of what they give now. Among all respondents, 7.3 percent donated more than $3,000 in the past two years and nearly 40 percent donated between $500 and $1,000. The donations came overwhelmingly during times of crises, such as the Kargil war of 1999, the Gujarat quake and other natural calamities. “The study shows that Indians are emerging as a powerful community in the US though they comprise only 0.6 per cent of the total American population.”
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