Nonbelievers Organize to Boost Charity Profile

Atheists and humanists, whom surveys show tend to donate their time and money less than people of a faith, are increasingly banding together to change their community’s uncharitable image, the Religion News Service reports.

Large nonbeliever groups such as the American Humanist Association and the Richard Dawkins Foundation have formed aid charities in recent years. This year atheists active on the social Web site Reddit.com have raised $207,000 for Doctors Without Borders, more than four times the 2010 total, and an atheist group raised the most last month on the microfinance site Kiva.

“There has been an absolute sea change,” said Dale McGowan, head of the Foundation Beyond Belief, a nonbelievers’ charity launched last year. “Giving has really become much more of a front-and-center concern for our community.”

Mr. McGowan and other leading atheists and humanists said the 2004 Asian tsunami spurred an outpouring of giving by nonbelievers, and the trend has grown with the influx into the movement of socially minded and increasingly nonreligious “millennials,” or people under 30.