How much should I give?

WHAT THE TRADITIONS SAY

1. Sikhism — 10% of income, called dasvandh. Formalized by the third Sikh Guru in the 16th century and understood as a debt of gratitude: a tenth of what you earn was never entirely yours. Of all the answers here, this is the clearest and least contested.
2. Judaism — 10% of net income, called ma'aser kesafim. Tzedakah shares a root with tzedek, justice, so giving is not generosity but a debt you owe. 20% is considered more generous, and the Talmud caps it there so that givers do not impoverish themselves. Synagogue dues are typically counted separately.
3. Christianity — 10% is the biblical tithe, though practice varies widely. Evangelical and LDS traditions teach the full tenth, Catholics have no binding rule (some bishops suggest 5% to the parish and 5% elsewhere), and mainline Protestants treat 10% as aspirational. Traditions also differ on whether giving to your own church counts toward it. Actual giving in American churches usually lands in the low single digits.
4. Islam — 2.5% of accumulated savings each year, not of income, which makes zakat a genuinely different instrument. A tithe taxes money coming in; zakat taxes money sitting still. Earn $100,000 and spend all of it and you owe nothing. Save $40,000 and you owe 2.5% of that, then 2.5% again next year if it is still there, and again the year after. Below a floor called the nisab (roughly 85 grams of gold, a few thousand dollars) you owe nothing at all. For a consistent saver this compounds, and over time it can exceed a 10% income tithe. The mosque itself is generally not a valid zakat recipient; supporting it comes from separate voluntary giving, sadaqah.
5. Bahá'í — 19% of accumulated wealth above necessary expenses, paid once per amount earned (Ḥuqúqu'lláh). Like zakat it taxes savings rather than income, so for most working Bahá'ís the annual outflow works out to a single-digit percentage of what they earn.
6. Hinduism — no fixed percentage. The Bhagavad Gita sorts dāna by motive rather than amount: given freely with no expectation of return is highest, given grudgingly or for reward is middle, given at the wrong time or with contempt is lowest. A tenth appears informally in some devotional communities. The instruction is to give regularly, generously, and without ego.
7. Buddhism — no fixed percentage. Dāna is the first practice the Buddha taught to laypeople, and the tradition describes a progression: give what you can spare, then what you would rather keep, then what you need yourself. The gift becomes a practice rather than a transaction at the point where it costs you something.
8. Jainism — no percentage, but four specific categories: food, medicine, knowledge, and protection of life. Giving is meant to be constant and woven through daily life rather than calculated once a year. The Jain community is historically among the most charitable per capita of any religious group in India.
9. The secular world has no equivalent standard. The most cited attempt is Peter Singer's sliding scale, roughly 1% near the poverty line, 5% for the comfortably well-off, climbing into double digits for high earners. Singer calls 5% realistic for most readers. American household giving in practice runs 2 to 3%.

Sikhism, Judaism, and most strands of Christianity converge near a tenth of income. Islam arrives somewhere similar by taxing wealth instead, which is why the income-versus-wealth distinction matters more than it first appears: the same money saved grows into a larger obligation over time. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism decline to name a number at all and judge giving by its quality and consistency. What every one of them shares is a gap between the standard and what people actually give. This is background rather than instruction, and the right number is the one you choose deliberately. Carlo will tell you what your own number currently is, on the Giving tab of Analytics.