Charity Wins Support of Obamas and O’Reilly

A program helping military families has received the largest share of the charitable donations made in 2010 by President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.

The first family gave $131,075 to the Fisher House as part of $245,075 in donations to a total of 36 charities. The contributions represent 14.2 percent of their adjusted gross income of more than $1.7 million, according to The White House Blog.

The Fisher House Foundation, which provides “comfort homes” at every major military medical center, has also won the support of conservative talk show host Bill O’Reilly. On April 1, O’Reilly announced that he had reached the $1 million mark in a fundraiser for the charity.

The foundation provides free lodging to families of patients undergoing treatment for battle injuries and other illnesses. The program served more 12,000 military families last year, and has provided a total of nearly three million days of lodging since it started in 1990.

Fisher House builds, then donates the homes to the government. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs and the military service secretaries run and maintain the facilities. The foundation has received the top rating of A+ from the charity watchdog the American Institute of Philanthropy. The president’s donation – the after-tax proceeds from his children’s book – will go to a Fisher House scholarship fund.

The Obamas donated $10,000 to the Boys and Girls Club of American and $5,000 to CARE, two other charities that received the A+ rating from the AIP. Their second largest donation of $15,000 went to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, reported an adjusted gross income of $379,178, and contributed $5,350 to charity in both monetary and in-kind donations.

Spectrem research shows that most wealthy investors give to charity. Twenty percent of millionaires with a net worth of $25 million or more give $100,000 or more each year. In a December survey 43 percent of these wealthy investors said they were likely to increase charitable donations as a strategy to offset tax increases.

Copyright 2011 by MillionaireCorner.com