Atlanta Philanthropy

Some interesting info about my new hometown from Charity Navigator's 2005 Metro Market Study:

For the second year in a row, Atlanta's charities are the most efficient at fundraising: Atlanta's large charities rank 1st in fundraising efficiency (spending only $0.065 to raise a dollar in contributions) and 1st in fundraising expenses (spending only 4.5% of their budgets on fundraising costs), when compared to the other metropolitan markets in this study.

Like last year, Atlanta's charities are still growing more than any other city's: Atlanta's charities report the greatest program expense growth, with an annual growth rate of 9.7%. Their revenue is also growing faster than many other cities at a rate of 5.1% (ranked 9th). Both of these growth rates are well above the national median of 6.6% and 4.4% respectively.

CEOs in Atlanta continued to be well paid: The median compensation awarded to CEOs of Atlanta's largest charities is $150,000 (ranked 4th). This is much higher than the national median of $113,513, but slightly lower than the median value of $176,478 (ranked 1st) reported last year by Atlanta's charities. Only CEOs in New York City ($166,400), St. Louis ($157,871), and San Diego ($157,590) earn more.

Atlanta charities concentrated on religious and educational causes: Atlanta has more large religious and education focused charities than most cities in the nation.

There's some pretty interesting info in the study, and even more throughout the site, which is one of the most useful on the Internet right now.