Donations to non-profit organizations in Puerto Rico increased 136.5% in eight years

Report from the Institute of Statistics and UPR reveals that donations deducted from payroll exceeded $329 million in 2023

The Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics and the Graduate School of Public Administration (EGAP) of the University of Puerto Rico published the new Generosity Report 2015-2023, an analysis that reveals sustained growth in monetary donations reported by taxpayers in Puerto Rico over the past eight years.

The report, based on official data from the Department of Treasury on deductions claimed for donations to non-profit organizations, shows that total monetary donations increased from $139.5 million in 2015 to $329.8 million in 2023, representing a cumulative increase of 136.5%.

The analysis also reveals that, during the period studied, taxpayers in Puerto Rico claimed an average of $231.9 million annually in deductions for donations. The largest annual increase occurred between 2020 and 2021, when deductions grew 19.6%, a behavior that coincides with the period after the pandemic and multiple emergencies that impacted Puerto Rico.

“The report confirms that in Puerto Rico there is a culture of support and solidarity that deserves to be documented and studied in greater depth. This data allow us to begin to measure Puerto Rico's philanthropic behavior, using official and comparable information,” said Dr. Luz Mairym López-Rodríguez, associate professor at EGAP and project manager.

The doctor added that “the preparation of this report represents an opportunity for Puerto Rico to join the discussion on generosity, particularly in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, it will make it possible to promote academic research based on concrete data.” He also expressed his gratitude to Omar Álvarez González, the Institute's statistical project assistant, for his collaboration in the development of the report.

“In many jurisdictions around the world, there are efforts to measure and document the ecosystem of generosity. In Puerto Rico, there is still little statistical information on this topic, so this report represents an important step in generating comparable data and bringing a new dimension to the economic and social analysis of Puerto Rico,” said Dr. Orville M. Disdier Flores, executive director of the Institute of Statistics.

Disdier also mentioned that “non-profit organizations and philanthropy are an important part of the social and economic fabric of Puerto Rico, and having official statistics on generosity allows us to better understand how people support community, educational, cultural and health causes, among others. That is why we welcomed the collaboration proposed by Dr. Luz Mairym López-Rodríguez to develop this analysis.”

The report also includes interactive graphics and maps that allow us to visualize trends and compare the behavior of deductions for donations over time. Although the total amount of donations increased, the study points out that the number of taxpayers who claimed deductions for donations showed a reduction during the period analyzed, suggesting that the average contributions claimed are higher than a decade ago.

The report is available at: Generosity Report 2015-2023.

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PRESS RELEASE

OFFICE OF THE ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Statistical Yearbook of the Education System 2015-2016 has been published

Study reflects decrease in the prevalence of bullying at school among girls

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) published the statistical profile of Puerto Rico's education system for the academic year 2015-2016. The report includes data and information on all levels of education (pre-primary, primary, secondary, post-secondary, and university), both for the public and private sectors.

For the segment that groups the pre-primary, primary and secondary levels, the study highlights that in the public system the number of schools decreased from 1,386 to 1,332; students decreased from 410,950 to 379,818; teachers increased from 31.186 to 31,993 and the student-to-teacher ratio decreased from 13.2 to 11.9. 51.1% of the students were male, and the number of students in special education decreased from 129,086 to 123,376. While for the private system the number of schools decreased from 853 to 795 and the number of students decreased from 144,034 to 142,235; the number of teachers decreased from 11,645 to 11,536. 50.7% of the students were male, the number of students in special education increased from 15,828 to 16,462, and the student-to-teacher ratio increased from 12.2 to 12.3.

The new Measurement and Evaluation for Academic Transformation tests, better known as the META, began to be implemented in the public sector in the academic year 2015-2016; these revealed that 45% and 51% of all students in the public sector were proficient in English and Spanish subjects, respectively, while in mathematics only 33% were proficient. Regarding the results of the Academic Achievement Tests, known as Learn Aid and taken by students from the private sector, they revealed that between 62% and 67% of students in all grades, in the private system, were proficient in the subjects of Spanish, English, non-verbal reasoning and mathematics.

Regarding the average scores obtained in the University Assessment and Admission Tests, tests known as the College Board, the results showed that, in the public and private sectors, the subject with the highest score was English, with 443 and 552, respectively. It should be noted that, for all subjects, including verbal and mathematical reasoning, students in the private sector scored higher compared to the public sector.

This statistical profile also revealed that the results of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, related to bullying, demonstrate a decrease in the prevalence of Bullying towards girls in public schools from 13.4% (2013) to 10.5% (2015).

“Achieving a statistical profile of the entire educational system in Puerto Rico, including data from both the public and private systems, requires multiple sources of information with methodologies and publication dates that vary widely from each other. It is for these reasons, among others, that this type of product is usually referred to two or three years prior to the current year. But despite this, this Statistical Yearbook is the only product in Puerto Rico that presents a standardized reference framework that contrasts with previous years and provides projections for the future, as far as education statistics are concerned,” explained Dr. Orville M. Disdier, Acting Executive Director of the Institute and lead author of the report.

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access.

For more information or to access the statistical profile of Puerto Rico's education system for the academic year 2015-2016, you can visit the website: Publications or through the social networks of Facebook (@estadisticas .pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico).

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Press Contact:

Idia Martínez

787-603-3200 imartinez@upfrontpr.net

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