The Pentera Blog
More Charitable Giving, but Fewer Donors
The percentage of American households donating to charity has been steadily declining since the Great Recession while, conversly, the total amount of money donated to charity has been steadily rising.
Americans donated a record $471.44 billion in 2020, a 5% increase from 2019 and a 36% increase compared with 2010 in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to the Giving USA 2021 Annual Report.
At the same time, the share of Americans donating to charity has declined. In 2000 fully two-thirds of U.S. households gave to charity. By 2018 that figure had fallen to 49.6%, according to a study by the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy.
According to the Lilly study, the Great Recession of 2007-2009 likely contributed to the decline in household participation in charitable giving. It also points to a significant decline in donations to religiously affiliated nonprofits in tandem with a decline in the percentage of Americans who attend worship services. According to the study, 46% of households gave to religiously affiliated causes in 2004 compared to just 29% in 2018.
Meanwhile, gifts from America's biggest philanthropists have been steadily rising. According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the nation's 50 largest donors gave a combined $33.4 billion in 2021. That is a more than six-fold increase compared with the top 50 donors' combined giving in 2010, even adjusted for inflation.
Some observers, such as the Institute for Policy Studies, argue that a growing reliance on the nation's wealthiest donors means the U.S. nonprofit sector is becoming too dependent on large gifts from high-net-worth individuals, making long-term planning less predictable for organizations that had previously relied on consistent, broad-based support.
