Parents should consider talking more to children about the causes they support and the efforts they make to support those causes.
The Northwestern Mutual Foundation, an affiliate of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, makes that case in a commentary based on results from an informal survey of 1,011 children who visited the foundation's financial literacy website, Themint.org, in November and December.
Children who visit a financial literacy would seem likely to be more aware of their family's finances than most other children, but only 23% said their parents talk about the causes and organizations they support.
Only 36% of the children said they know what their parents do to support favorite causes.
About 18% of the children said their parents donate volunteer time, and 10% said their parents donate money.
In other philanthropic news:
- The Colorado arm of WellPoint Inc., Indianapolis (NYSE:WLP), which does business under the name Anthem, says it and its corporate foundation gave about $605,000 to Colorado charities and civic groups in 2010.
Anthem employees in Colorado contributed a total of about $151,000, and the corporate foundation in the state provided about $75,000 in matching contributions.