Cat Owners Vs. Dog Owners: Who Gives More To Charity? 800 Million Donation Records Analyzed

Dartmouth Study Also Sheds Light On Political Preferences Among Pet Owners

HANOVER, N.H. — A massive analysis of nearly 800 million donation records reveals cat owners donate more frequently and to a wider variety of causes than dog owners. The research, examining a decade of giving data from over 60 million Americans, adds hard data to the personality debate between cat and dog people.

Published in Anthrozoös, the study provides the most detailed look yet at how pet preferences relate to charitable behavior. While people without pets gave the largest dollar amounts overall, cat owners emerged as the most consistent givers. They donated an average of 14 times over the 10-year period, compared to just 11 times for non-pet owners.

Cat owners also spread their donations across more organizations. Only 52% of cat owners limited their giving to a single cause, while 63% of non-pet owners concentrated on just one charity.

Cat Owners Lead in Donation Frequency

In all, the database included 62.8 million donors making 787.9 million transactions totaling nearly $70 billion in charitable contributions. Pet ownership categories broke down as: no pets (39%), both cats and dogs (34%), dogs only (18%), and cats only (9%).

Herbert Chang, an assistant professor of quantitative social science at Dartmouth College, used machine learning methods to control for income, education, and other demographic factors. His analysis identified which factors most influenced donation amounts, with pet ownership ranking fourth in importance. Only income, education, and gender proved more predictive of charitable behavior than whether someone owned a cat, dog, or no pet at all.

The research builds on established psychological profiles of pet preferences. Studies consistently show dog people tend to be more social, energetic, and rule-following, while cat people are more neurotic, introverted, and non-conformist. “Cat people are also more open, meaning they are creative and willing to engage with new ideas,” Chang notes.

Political Divides Mirror Pet Choices

Beyond giving patterns, the study uncovered political differences among pet owners. Cat owners leaned Democratic, while dog owners showed higher Republican affiliation rates, confirming previous survey results.

Pet owners were more likely to identify as independents, while non-pet owners were more often non-partisan. Though they sound the same, Chang explains there’s a clear difference between the two groups. “Independents are often politically engaged and usually lean a certain way,” he writes, while “non-partisans are characterized by non-preferentiality and often being apolitical.”

What Nonprofits Can Learn From Cat And Dog Owners

To quantify giving diversity, Chang used Shannon entropy, a mathematical way to measure how scattered donations were across different causes. This allowed him to calculate precisely how dispersed each donor’s contributions were among various organizations.

Cat owners showed clear differences in giving breadth. Using a statistical measure called Earth Mover’s Distance, Chang found a 12.7% difference between dog owners and cat owners in giving diversity, which represents a meaningful behavioral gap.

Cat owners’ higher openness may explain their willingness to donate to diverse causes. On the other hand, their introverted nature might drive more frequent, smaller contributions rather than large, public gifts.

For charitable organizations, these patterns offer some interesting insights for donor retention strategies. Fundraising chairs could tailor campaigns to cat owners’ habit of routine, but smaller gifts. On the other hand, dog owners and non-pet owners could be targeted for bigger, one-time gifts.

Looking Ahead

Like any research, this work has limits. The database only included people who already donate to charity, so it excludes those who never give. That likely tilts the results toward more generous individuals overall. In addition, the demographic data were collected when donors first entered the system and were not updated over time.

Another caveat: the sample included more pet owners than the general population. U.S. Census data suggest about 23% of households have cats and 40% have dogs. In this donor database, however, cat and dog ownership rates were higher. This could reflect the long time span covered, or it may mean that pet owners are simply more represented among donors.

Why It Matters

This research is the largest of its kind, showing that even non-human relationships can reveal patterns in human generosity. Cat owners, in particular, stand out for donating more often and more widely than other groups. Perhaps the dog owners reading this report may be inspired to increase their own donation activity.

Future work could look at whether adopting a pet changes someone’s giving over time, or whether certain types of charities—such as animal welfare, political groups, or health causes—draw more strongly from specific pet-owning groups.

What is clear is that our ties with our beloved pets reflect more than companionship. They may also shape how we connect with causes, communities, and society at large.