I was eager to learn what motivates their charity, and how they can give so much and still accumulate wealth. In our age of consumption, when they are barraged with luxury marketing messages, the answer appears to be refreshingly simple: Giving makes them feel good.

According to my research, most self-made millionaire women are confident and content. They measure their success, in part, by their ability to give more as their income and wealth rise. By contrast, most Americans use a windfall to fund a new car or luxury vacation. But those who give more to charity admit that it makes them feel better than expensive clothes or a grand home.

Amazingly, fund-raisers often overlook these women, and spend more time chasing beautiful people who look like they just walked out of a fashion magazine. But that type of wealthy consumer is more likely to flaunt her income than give a high proportion of it to charity. Other aspects of philanthropy were also surprising:

• Educators give more as a percentage of their income than those in any other profession. Self-employed business owners rank second.

• Among the 26 ancestry groups I studied, African-American women donated significantly more of their income: 10.1 percent.

• Self-made millionaire women tend to be more active volunteers and fund-raisers. This stems from their parents, they report, who raised them to be leaders who give back to their communities.

• Tax benefits do not drive this giving. Affluent women perceive income tax as a percentage of wealth (they pay about 3 percent) rather than a function of income (they pay 34 percent). They believe that if they pay high taxes, they must be making a lot of money, and they should be thankful. Helping carry the burden for those less fortunate is part of their makeup as leaders.

Millionaire women most often choose local religious institutions as beneficiaries of their largesse. Educational institutions also rank highly: One out of three dollars self-made millionaire women bequeath to charity goes to education. They remember college as an environment where they found an equal chance to succeed. Surprisingly, only about 7 percent of their giving goes to the arts and humanities.

Give and Take
“It is possible to do well financially and to do good things for others,” one affluent businesswoman told me. “These are not mutually exclusive goals.” In fact, my studies show that higher levels of charitable giving correlate with wealth-accumulating factors. I looked at two groups of high-income female business owners with comparable ages and incomes: those who give 10 percent or more of their annual income, and those who give 1 percent or less. The 10-percent donors tend to:

• Accumulate more wealth for every dollar of their income ($9.52 versus $7.29);
  
• Spend less on impediments to building wealth, such as houses, clothes, cars and income taxes;
  
• Allocate more to building wealth, including investments and fees for financial advice.

Early training seems to be a causal factor. Parents emphasized education, demonstrated frugality and trained their daughters to lead in helping those less fortunate. Beverly Bishop, who made her fortune selling Chevrolets in Atlanta for 30 years, learned by example to take the initiative when people need help. Her mother took in an evicted neighbor and his family, and her Sunday table was often crowded with Cuban exiles. Today, Bishop donates about 30 percent of her income to charitable causes, more than she pays annually in interest, insurance, cars, clothes and vacations combined.

Bishop does it because it makes her feel good. And that, she says, is one of the primary rewards she reaps from her wealth.

Thomas J. Stanley, PhD, is the author of Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen (Andrews McMeel).