For any politician looking to run for President or leader of a particular party, image is everything. People want to vote for someone they believe to be kind and generous and a large reflection of that is how much that particular politician donates to charity. Republican candidate Rick Perry has spoken out at great detail for the need of charitable giving during his election campaign – after all, he is positioning himself as a devoutly Christian man and tithes and donations are a strong part of the Christian moral ethic. However, his own history of charitable donations is slightly murkier.

An examination of Perry’s tax returns from 2007 highlights the issue at hand. In that year Perry made over $1m dollars personally. However, his charitable donations in no way match his income. Of the money made that year, Perry donated just $90 to his local church, with total charitable donations that year cashing in at $413. Statistics show that the average American consumer donates around 1.2% of their income to charity each year – Perry’s contribution to charities in 2007 amounted to just half a per cent. That may be enough for the charities to buy some rick perry bumper stickers, but it is hardly going to do much to help ease the nation’s problems.

There are also questions about the kinds of charities Perry donates, with some arguing that almost all of them have some personal tie to him. Tax returns from 1996 show Perry donating $100 to his old alma mater at Texas University, while other organizations benefiting from his charitable giving included $50 given to children’s charity Helping Hand Home for Children. Additionally, in 1998 records show that Perry donated $10 to the school his children were attending. This figure did increase in 2002 and 2003 to $50 each year.

More questions are arisen regarding a pay raise Perry received in 2008 on the declaration that he was going to donate the extra $35,000 dollar to charity. His salary was increased to $150,000 p.a. from $115,000 p.a. and indeed in 2008 Perry did give away $34,998 to charity (he gave an additional $2,850 to churches at the same time). However, over the years this figure fell; in 2009 he gave $20,000 to charities, while in 2010 his donation was just $12,500 – his salary at this time was $217,447.

However, there are pundits who back Perry by saying his donations are in line with other politicians. Michael Nilsen, the head of the Association of Fundraising commented that “Perry’s giving is about average from what I have seen” while Ken Berger of Charity Navigator, the watchdog authority for charities, stated that “Most of this is not showing a great philanthropist and also not showing anything significantly out of the norm”. Despite this, one thing is clear – if Perry wants to put these rumours that he is uncharitable to bed then he will have to dig a little deeper when next donating to charity.

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