Giving USA 2025: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2024 was released today. As the longest-running annual report on philanthropy in America, it tells an impressive story. Winkler Group principals Jim Bush and Jessica Browning offer these insights.
Americans gave $592.50 billion to nonprofits in 2024, the most ever in current dollars.
Giving to all sectors increased, while giving to education, health, arts/culture, and the environment hit all-time highs. Giving from all four donor sources—individuals, foundations, corporations, and bequests—exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
We have the strong 2024 economy to thank. The S&P soared by 23 percent, AI fueled tech-sector expansion, GDP grew by 5.3 percent, and inflation began to cool. Collectively, these trends boosted consumer confidence—a key driver of charitable giving.
But will this record-breaking generosity last?
Takeaway #1: Will These Record Gains Hold?
Despite 2024’s impressive numbers, today’s fundraising landscape is decidedly less optimistic.
Ongoing global conflict, looming federal budget cuts, and legislative uncertainty threaten the momentum.
But should we ignore 2024 giving numbers and focus instead on the many adversities impacting nonprofits today? Absolutely not.
We don’t know what this year will bring. Rather than panic, we must dig deeper into the data. While a record year doesn’t promise stability—it does offer opportunity.
In 2024, there were 4.5 percent fewer donors than the year before—on top of a 3.4 percent decline in 2023 and a 10 percent drop in 2022. Meanwhile, individual giving’s share of total contributions has fallen from 80 percent to 67 percent over four decades.
Why? More giving is being routed through foundations and DAFs. Major giving strategies are sidelining everyday donors. And technology—email, social media, even AI—is replacing authentic, human interaction.
Now is the time to analyze these giving patterns, close funding gaps, and prepare for what’s next.
Source: Giving USA Foundation, Giving USA 2025: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2024
Takeaway #2: Giving by Corporations Jumped, but Don’t Get Sidetracked
Corporate giving reached $44.4 billion in 2024, a 9.1 percent increase in current dollars. This growth was driven by strong corporate profits and GDP performance, as well as pharmaceutical in-kind donations.
It’s tempting to chase this surge, but nonprofits should tread carefully. Corporate giving still represents only 7 percent of all donations and rarely exceeds 1.1 percent of pre-tax profits.
New laws under consideration could shift this dynamic. The Senate’s version of the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act proposes that corporations donate at least 1 percent of profits to qualify for deductions. While this may help normalize giving among large corporations, small business participation could suffer.
Bottom line: Don’t shift focus away from individual donors. Corporate giving may be rising, but it’s still a relatively small piece of the puzzle.
In the last four decades, corporate giving as a percentage of corporate pre-tax profits has averaged 1.1 percent.
Source: Giving USA Foundation, Giving USA 2025: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2024
Takeaway #3: Giving to Education Reached a Record High; Alumni Giving Mixed
Giving to education reached historic levels in both current and inflation-adjusted dollars.
- Higher education giving rose 3 percent over the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024 (adjusted).
- Independent school giving increased 8 percent with a median gift of $4,013 per student.
These gains align with the stock market’s strength—education giving is closely tied to market performance. But look closer: alumni participation is slipping.
- Independent school alumni giving fell from 8 percent to 7.1 percent.
- Most higher ed gifts came from donors 31+ years post-graduation—they gave 85 percent of all alumni dollars, even though younger alumni made up nearly half of the alumni base.
Source: Giving USA Foundation, Giving USA 2025: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2024
Takeaway #4: Foundation Giving Rises Again
Foundation giving exceeded $100 billion for the third consecutive year—now comprising 19 percent of all giving, up from just 6 percent four decades ago.
The strong stock market has helped to strengthen the endowments from which many foundations make their grants. According to FoundationMark, foundation assets grew from an estimated $533 billion in 2009 to $1.61 trillion in 2024.
The number of foundations has also grown—by 30 percent in just the past 10 years as more donors have become familiar with foundations as flexible and tax-efficient giving vehicles. This shift in structure—not just dollars given—means thinking more carefully about how we engage with foundations as part of our development infrastructure.
Takeaway #5: DAF Domination Continues
The total value of grants made by donor advised funds increased from $28.49 billion in 2019 to $54.77 billion in 2023. That’s a 92 percent increase in less than five years.
DAF grants at community foundations and national charities like Fidelity Charitable and Schwab Charitable nearly doubled in the last five years. These increases in such a short time are staggering.
DAFs are an increasingly popular giving vehicle, particularly among the wealthy. Of the $16.2 billion given by The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s 50 largest donors in 2024, more than half was given to the donors’ DAF or foundation instead of directly to a nonprofit.
DAFs are especially important to academic institutions. In 2023, 10.6 percent of all giving to higher education came from DAFs, and contributions to education from DAFs were up 12.1 percent.
Nonprofits—particularly academic institutions—must become DAF-literate. If you’re not engaging DAF donors strategically, you’re missing investment.
Takeaway #6: There Are Too Many Nonprofits, and that Limits Our Sector’s Impact
Giving to public-society benefit increased 19.5 percent—the highest rate of growth among all sectors—fueled by the rising popularity of donor-advised funds.
Source: Giving USA Foundation, Giving USA 2025: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2024
There are simply too many 501(c)(3) organizations in the United States.
In the last ten years alone, the number grew by a whopping 44 percent. This growth is unsustainable, particularly as we consider the number of donors in the U.S. is on the decline.
In addition to providing redundant services, the proliferation of nonprofits means more competition for funding, volunteers, and impact. There’s a duplication of staffing and infrastructure needs, which means more money goes to overhead rather than direct services.
In the 21 years the Winkler Group has been serving nonprofits, we’ve only facilitated one merger. In the for-profit world, mergers create strategic advantages. So why the resistance in our sector?
Whether it’s ego, control, or fear, this unwillingness to consolidate is costing us effectiveness. It’s time to rethink what growth and sustainability really look like.
The explosive growth in the number of nonprofits hurts the sector.
Source: Giving USA Foundation, Giving USA 2025: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2024
Takeaway #7: Pay Attention to What’s Next—It’s Up to Us
So back to our original $592 billion question: Can 2024’s record giving survive what’s next? Much of the answer is up to us.
Pay attention to what happens to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The Senate version of the budget reconciliation bill expands the universal charitable deduction for philanthropic gifts beyond the deduction allowed in the House version. Taxpayers who do not itemize would be allowed to deduct up to $1,000 individually or $2,000 jointly in charitable gifts. This deduction could add an estimated $9–11 billion in giving to nonprofits each year. It could also reinvigorate individual giving from donors who lost the taxable incentive to give when the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed.
The biggest impact we can make to continue record giving levels is far simpler than lobbying Congress to make the universal charitable deduction permanent. It’s about paying attention to our donors so they will keep giving—and even give more.
To ensure philanthropy’s future, we must continue to cultivate donors, make our case for support, build relationships, and treat donors like the investors they are. That’s our primary takeaway from Giving USA 2025.
Further Reading and References
- CASE Insights on Voluntary Support of Education, 2024 Report (case.org)
- 2024 Donor-Advised Fund Report (nptrust.org)
- Foundation Assets Jumped Estimated $170 Billion (thenonprofittimes.com)
- Giving USA: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2024 (givingusa.org)
- ‘Heartening’ Rebound Lifts College and University Gifts to $61.5 Billion (philanthropy.com)
- Top Donors’ Giving to and Grants Awarded from Their Foundations and Donor-Advised Funds in 2024 (philanthropy.com)
About the Report
Giving USA: The Annual Report on Philanthropy, the longest-running and most comprehensive report on the sources and uses of charitable giving in America, is published by Giving USA Foundation, a public service initiative of The Giving Institute. It is researched and written by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI.
Jim Bush is a member of the Giving USA Editorial Review Board and Jessica Browning is a past member of the Editorial Review Board. Rachel Canady, the Winkler Group’s marketing director and author of “The One, Big, Beautiful Bill: A Mixed Bag for Nonprofits,” contributed to this article.
