Pet Owners & philanthropy: New Study Reveals How Furry Friends Influence Charitable Giving
HANOVER, NH – A groundbreaking analysis of nearly 800 million charitable donation recordsโข hasโฃ revealed surprising connections between pet ownership โคand giving behavior. Teh โฃstudy, published online Septemberโ 19, 2025, in the journal Anthrozoรถs,โฃ demonstrates that while non-petโค owners donate largerโค amounts โขcat and โคdog owners exhibit โdistinctโ patterns in donationโ frequency, diversity, andโ even political alignment.
Researchers at Dartmouth College’sโฃ Program in Quantitative Social Science, led by Ho-Chun Herbert Chang, โexaminedโข a โฃmassive datasetโข of 62,763,634 donors and 787,877,198 โขtransactions โคtotaling $69.7 billion, collectedโ by aโ nonprofit marketingโฃ company betweenโค 2013 and 2022. Pet ownership โwas categorized into four groups: โขNo Pets (39%), Both Cats โand Dogs (34%), Dogs Only (18%), andโ Cats Only (9%).
The findings challenge simple assumptionsโฃ about charitable giving.While non-pet ownersโฃ donated an average โof over $1,000 โคin total, cat owners donated more frequently -โฃ an average ofโ 14 times over the decade compared to 11 times for non-pet owners.Furthermore, cat owners demonstrated a broader range of charitable interests, with only 52% giving to a โsingleโข institution, compared โขto 63% of those without pets. This indicates a greater “donation diversity.”
“Our ties with our beloved pets reflect more โthan companionship,” โฃthe study suggests, possibly shaping howโค individuals connect with causes and communities.
Using โขa machine learning technique called CatBoost regression,โค researchers identified pet ownership as the fourth most notable predictor โof donation amounts,โข following income, education, and gender. The analysis also uncovered intriguing politicalโ trends.โ Cat โคowners leaned Democratic, while dog owners showed higher rates of Republican affiliation. Pet owners, in โขgeneral, were more likely to identify โas independents, while non-petโ ownersโ were more oftenโ non-partisan.
The study utilizedโข the Wassersteinโ metric (Earth โขMover’s distance) to measure statistical distances between giving patterns and Shannon entropy to quantify diversity.โ
Researchers acknowledgeโฃ severalโฃ limitations. โขThe dataset โcomprisedโข existing donors, introducing a โselection bias โขtowards those alreadyโค inclined to philanthropy. Demographicโฃ data was collected only at the initial data entry point and wasn’tโฃ updatedโ throughout the study period. Crucially, the study was observational, preventing the establishmentโ of causal relationships. additionally, the donor โdatabase showed a higher proportion of pet owners than โreflected in national census data, suggesting potential overrepresentation โofโฃ pet owners among charitable contributors.
The research received exemption status from the Dartmouth Committee for the Protection of โHuman Subjects (STUDY00033213). The author reported no potential conflict of interest. Theโ studyโค was published by Taylor & Francis Group and the International โฃSociety โfor Anthrozoologyโค (ISAZ).
The full study, “Pet Ownership Ties as Indicators for Giving Behavior,” is available online at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08927936.2025.2544418.