The Pentera Blog
Of Wealthy Americans, Widowed Women Give the Most to Charity in Their Wills
A new report from the IRS confirms that widowed women are by far the most charitable of all wealthy Americans when it comes to making gifts in their wills—the primary type of planned gift.
The IRS earlier this year published its analysis of charitable bequests made by Americans who died in 2013 and whose estates filed estate-tax returns—meaning they had a net worth of at least $5.25 million. The IRS found that widowed women gave the most money by far—almost $7.8 billion, more than twice as much as widowed men, who ranked second for the dollar total.
The analysis found that 904 widowed women who died in 2013 had gifts to charity on their estate-tax returns, a far higher number than the second place of eight categories: married men with 557 bequests. The statistics confirm that among wealthy Americans, widowed women are the most likely candidates to make gifts in wills and trusts—which for most charities make up the vast majority of planned gifts received. The findings show how important it is to know the gender and marital status of your prospective donors.
Here are the findings (in order of the dollar total of gifts reported):
Charitable Bequests in Estate-Tax Returns of 2013 Decedents
| Category | Number of bequests |
Dollar total (in thousands) |
| Widowed women | 904 | $7,763,195 |
| Widowed men | 449 | 3,422,768 |
| Married men | 557 | 3,190,134 |
| Other men* | 118 | 1,469,785 |
| Single men | 209 | 1,351,055 |
| Single women | 137 | 638,142 |
| Other women* | 130 | 490,854 |
| Married women | 130 | 197,731 |
*Other includes divorced, legally separated, and marital status unknown
Source: IRS, Statistics of Income Division, Estate Tax Study, February 2017
Widowed women lead the way in eight of nine categories of charity
The IRS report also shows that wealthy widowed women gave the most money to virtually every category of nonprofit, ranking first for number of gifts and dollar amount in eight of the nine types of charities. The only category in which widowed women did not rank first was international and foreign affairs.
Charity Categories in Which Widowed Women Ranked First*
- Public societal benefit
- Education
- Health
- Human services
- Religion-related
- Arts, culture, and humanities
- Environment and animal welfare
- Membership
*Listed in order of the dollar amount given by widowed women on estate-tax returns
