I have never had a system for giving. Wikipedia assaults me with banners every December and I eventually pony up. I give regularly to the Human Kindness Foundation, an organization a friend of mine started that teaches prayer and meditation in prisons. I give to a cat rescue called Kitty Kind because I am a cat lover. I give to the Central Park Conservancy because I love Central Park. I give to political causes sporadically, when I’m reading the news too much. I give to people in need on the street, and I always feel uncomfortable about the moment of deciding (in real time, with the person standing right there) whether what I am handing over will go toward something I will approve of or not.
For most of my adult life that was the whole picture. Some checks, some auto-pays, the occasional cash dropped in a cup or out the car window. No system, no standard, and certainly no idea what the actual number was at the end of the year.
Then I looked at eight years of my own transaction data and found I had given far less than I thought.
That is not a fun thing to find out. The version of myself I had been carrying around was generous. The version in the spreadsheet was not.
So I built a feature into Carlo, the budgeting app I am building, that brings together the three places giving actually happens for me: the spontaneous gifts that show up during the month, the larger one-time gifts that come out of the annual category, and the regular monthly payments that ride along with bills. One column, one running total, with a percentage of take-home calculated.
But capturing the math opened a different question: What is enough? What should I be striving for? The data could tell me what I was doing. It could not tell me what I should be doing.
So I went looking for some answers. Here is what I found.
Judaism
The traditional Jewish practice is ma’aser kesafim, literally “tithe of money,” which is ten percent of net or after-tax income given to charity. Some authorities treat it as a binding obligation, others as a strong and praiseworthy custom. A more generous level is twenty percent, which the Talmud actually caps as a maximum so that people who give a lot do not impoverish themselves and become recipients of charity in turn. There is no fixed split between synagogue and other causes. Synagogue dues are typically treated as separate from tzedakah, though some authorities allow a portion to count.
The priority order in classical sources is roughly: poor relatives first, then the local poor, then the broader community. Torah study and synagogue support also qualify. Tzedakah itself comes from the same root as tzedek, justice. The framing is not generosity as a virtue but giving as a debt you owe because you have what you have.
Christianity
The biblical tithe is ten percent. A commonly cited text is Malachi 3:10, and the practice runs back through the Mosaic law into the patriarchs. From there, practice varies enormously.
Many Evangelical churches teach ten percent as the tithe, though Evangelicals differ on whether all of it should go to the local church or whether part may go to other ministries and charities. Latter-day Saints teach a more formal ten percent tithe paid through the church. Catholics, as far as I can tell, have no fixed percentage. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has at times suggested a “five and five” framing, five percent to your parish and five percent to other charities, but this is pastoral guidance and not obligation. Mainline Protestants tend to teach ten percent as an aspirational goal, often split between church and other giving.
Studies of American Christian giving put the actual number well below the tithe, typically in the low single digits as a share of income. The gap between what is taught and what is given is large.
Islam
Islam asks something structurally different from the other two.
Zakat is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The rate is 2.5% per year, but it is calculated on accumulated wealth held for a full lunar year, not on income. The lunar-year holding requirement is called the hawl. If you earn and spend, you owe nothing on what passes through. Zakat is also owed only on wealth above a minimum threshold called the nisab, traditionally measured against a fixed quantity of gold or silver. If you fall below the nisab in a given year, you owe nothing.
The recipients are specifically defined. Quran 9:60 names eight categories: the poor, the needy, those administering zakat, those whose hearts are to be reconciled, captives needing ransom, the indebted, travelers in need, and those in the path of God. The mosque itself, called a masjid, is generally not a zakat recipient under the majority scholarly view, though minority interpretations read the “in the path of God” category more broadly. Mosque support typically comes from a separate voluntary giving called sadaqah, which Muslims are encouraged to practice in addition to zakat.
So in headline terms, 2.5% sounds smaller than 10%, but it is calculated on a different base. Someone who saves and accumulates pays zakat on the whole pile every year. Someone who tithes pays only on the income that comes in. Over a long horizon, especially for a person with substantial accumulated wealth, zakat can represent a larger ongoing obligation than a simple income tithe, though the comparison depends on income, savings, and spending pattern.
Hinduism
Hindu giving is called dāna, and it is one of the oldest continuously practiced charitable traditions in the world. Unlike the Abrahamic standards, there is no single fixed percentage that applies across the tradition. The Bhagavad Gita distinguishes three kinds of dāna: sāttvika (given at the right time and place, to a worthy recipient, with no expectation of return), rājasika (given grudgingly or with expectation of reward), and tāmasika (given at the wrong time, to the wrong person, with contempt). The category matters more than the amount.
That said, percentages do appear in the practice. A common informal standard is one-tenth, sometimes called daśamāṁśa, particularly among devotional communities. Some traditions teach one-sixth as the historical share given to the king or community, which has been carried forward by some lineages as a charitable proportion. The practical answer most observant Hindus would give today is closer to “give regularly, give generously, give without ego” than a specific number.
Priority recipients traditionally include Brahmins and teachers, temples, pilgrims, the sick and poor, and animals. Feeding people, called annadāna, is considered an especially meritorious form. The act of giving is understood as purifying the giver, not just helping the recipient.
Buddhism
Buddhist giving is also called dāna, the same Sanskrit root. It is the first of the six pāramitās, or perfections, and the first practice the Buddha taught to laypeople. There is no fixed percentage.
What Buddhism emphasizes instead is the quality of the giving. The tradition distinguishes giving with attachment, giving from duty, and giving freely. The freely given gift, offered without expectation and without diminishing the giver’s regard for either the gift or the recipient, is considered the highest form. Theravada texts describe a progression: giving what you can spare, then giving what you would prefer to keep, then giving what you yourself need.
In practice, lay Buddhists support the monastic sangha through daily alms, temple offerings, and larger contributions for monastery maintenance and ordination ceremonies. Many lay Buddhists also give to general charitable causes outside the sangha, though the merit framework historically prioritizes gifts to monks and nuns. Modern engaged Buddhism, particularly in the West, has expanded the practice to include social justice causes and humanitarian aid.
The number, if there is one, is implicit in the instruction to give until it costs you something. The point at which the gift becomes a practice rather than a transaction is the point at which it counts.
Sikhism
Sikhism has the cleanest answer of any tradition I looked at. It is called dasvandh, literally “the tenth part,” and it is ten percent of one’s income given to the community and to those in need. Guru Amar Das, the third Sikh Guru, formalized the practice in the sixteenth century, and it has remained the standard ever since.
Dasvandh is understood as a debt of gratitude rather than charity in the Western sense. The income is not entirely yours to begin with; ten percent of it was always meant to flow back. Sikhs typically give through the gurdwara, which then distributes funds for langar (the free community kitchen open to anyone of any faith), education, and aid to the poor. Direct giving to other charitable causes also counts.
Sikhism pairs dasvandh with two other practices: kirat karō (honest work) and vaṇḍ chakkō (sharing what you have). The three together form the practical core of Sikh ethical life. There is no debate within the tradition about whether ten percent is the right number. It is the number.
Bahá’í
The Bahá’í Faith asks for Ḥuqúqu’lláh, “the Right of God,” which is 19% of one’s accumulated wealth after necessary expenses. Like zakat, it is calculated on wealth rather than income, and it is owed only once on any given increase. If you earn money and spend it, you owe nothing. If you save it past your necessary expenses, you owe 19% of what remains, paid once.
The threshold is 19 mithqáls of gold, roughly the value of 69 grams. Below that, nothing is owed. Above it, the obligation is paid to the head of the Faith, currently the Universal House of Justice, which uses it for the work of the community. Bahá’ís additionally contribute voluntarily to local and national funds.
19% sounds steep next to 10%, but the once-only calculation on wealth above necessary expenses makes the comparison hard. For most working Bahá’ís with ordinary expenses, the practical annual outflow is closer to a single-digit percentage of income.
Jainism
Jainism teaches dāna as one of the essential duties of lay life, alongside fasting, study, and meditation. There is no fixed percentage, but the tradition is unusually specific about the categories of giving. Four are named: ahāra-dāna (giving food), aushadha-dāna (giving medicine), shāstra-dāna (giving knowledge or scriptures), and abhaya-dāna (giving freedom from fear, often interpreted as protection of life, including animal life).
Jain laypeople are expected to give regularly across these categories. The tradition’s emphasis on non-violence (ahimsā) shapes the giving: supporting animal sanctuaries, providing medical care, sponsoring religious education, and supporting ascetic mendicants are all considered high-merit. The Jain community is small but historically among the most charitable per capita of any religious group in India.
The number is not specified. The expectation is that giving is constant and structural, woven into daily life rather than calculated annually.
What the secular world says
The secular world does not really have an answer.
That is itself a striking observation. Across thousands of years and very different routes, every major religious tradition arrived at something. Some landed on a percentage. Some landed on a category structure. Some landed on a posture. The secular tradition has nothing equivalent. There is a culture of philanthropy, especially in the United States, but the culture is mostly composed of vibes. Give what you can. Give back. Do good. None of those is a number.
The numbers we do have describe practice, not standard. American philanthropic giving overall hovers around two percent of GDP. Studies of individual household giving typically land in the low single digits of income. Those are descriptions of what people do, not prescriptions for what they should do.
There is one notable exception. The philosopher Peter Singer published an essay in 1972 called “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” arguing that if you can prevent something bad from happening at no comparable moral cost to yourself, you are obligated to do so. He developed this further in his book The Life You Can Save, which lays out an actual sliding scale: roughly 1% of income for people just above the poverty line, climbing to about 5% for the comfortably well-off, into double digits for high earners, and as much as a third of income for the very wealthy. Singer himself describes 5% as the realistic target for most readers. His argument is one of the most-cited works of contemporary moral philosophy and the most prominent secular case for tying charitable giving to specific numbers.
That a category as old and important as charitable giving has, in the secular world, so few widely recognized numerical standards tells you something about the gap a person navigates without a religious tradition. Singer’s case is the most prominent. But compared with the inherited structures of the religious traditions, the secular tradition has far less to lean on. It is not that the secular world is stingy. It is that the secular world, on this particular question, has not done its homework.
Where this leaves me
The traditions converge less than I expected, and more than I expected, at the same time.
Sikhism, Judaism, and most strands of Christianity land near ten percent of income. Islam reaches a similar place by a different route, taxing wealth instead of income. The Bahá’í Faith asks more on accumulated wealth but only once. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism resist a single number and instead define giving by its quality, its recipients, and its regularity. The secular tradition, with the exception of Peter Singer’s sliding scale, has the least to say.
What strikes me across all of them is the absence of vagueness. Even the traditions without a fixed percentage have detailed instructions about who to give to, how to give, and what makes a gift count. The secular culture I grew up in has none of this. It has good intentions and a December email from Wikipedia.
The actual practice across all these traditions, in the United States at least, is closer to 2–3%. The gap is the standard.
I don’t think the right move is to pick one number and declare it correct for everyone. I think the right move is to know what the standards are, decide which one applies to you, and then look at what you are actually doing and see whether the two match.
I am not yet at ten percent. But the number is no longer hidden from me. I can see it grow or shrink in real time. I can challenge myself to give more, and be more thoughtful about how I give and to what causes. The standards exist. The work is to choose one and keep it.