Study: Collier County residents are Florida's most generous

Collier County residents are givers.

Not just at Christmastime, but year-round, according to data culled from 2016 income tax returns.

A study of the data, done by financial technology company SmartAsset, showed Collier County residents gave back the most of any county in Florida. 

As a group, Collier residents donated 3.87 percent of their net income. 

On top of that, nearly 28 percent of the county's residents made charitable donations of some kind in 2016, according to SmartAsset.

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One of the biggest fundraisers in Collier County is the Naples Winter Wine Festival, a charity wine festival featuring dinners hosted by celebrity chefs and an auction. This year the annual event raised more than $15 million for the Naples Children & Education Foundation, which provides grants to nonprofits and funds collaborative strategic initiatives to help needy children in the county.   

Based on SmartAsset's study, the other counties ranking in the Top 5 for giving are St. Johns, Palm Beach, Martin and Indian River. 

No counties in Southwest Florida other than Collier made it in the Top 10 for their charitable donations.

Nationally, Collier County ranked 143rd out of more than 3,100 counties included in SmartAsset's study.

In first place? Morgan County, Utah. 

According to IRS data, Collier County residents itemized more than $820 million in donations in 2016, said AJ Smith, SmartAsset's vice president of financial education.

This is the first time SmartAsset has done such a study. 

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SmartAsset crunched the numbers on how much people donate as a percentage of their income and the percentage of people making charitable donations — and those two factors were indexed and equally weighted to determine the most-giving counties.

"Each of the indices show how a county measures up to the top county in the country in each category," Smith said. "The top county receives a score of 100, and each county's value is tied to how closely they compare to that."   

Eileen Connolly-Keesler, president of the Community Foundation of Collier County, which pools money from donors to support local community projects and nonprofits, said she wasn't surprised to see the county rank so high for giving in Florida. 

Collier County doesn't use tax dollars to support human services or charities, so money from private donors is critical, with about 400 nonprofits operating in the county, she said. 

"If philanthropists didn't give here, we'd be in some serious trouble to provide services to all those in the county that need it, from babies to seniors," Connolly-Keesler said.  

Florida's most generous counties

Here's a look at the state's highest-ranking counties for giving:  

Rank     County         Most Charitable Index        

1)          Collier                58.7 percent

2)          St. Johns           53.7 percent 

3)          Palm Beach       51.9 percent 

4)          Martin                50.3 percent

5)          Indian River       49.4 percent 

6)          Sarasota            49.3 percent

7)          Sumter               48.8 percent

8)          Monroe              48.2 percent 

9)         Nassau               48.1 percent 

10)       Walton                44.3 percent   

Source: SmartAsset