The Giving USA Report is the longest running annual report on U.S. charitable giving, and is published by the Giving USA Foundation. It is researched and written by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
In 2020, $471.44 billion was contributed, an increase of 5.1% over 2019 total giving.
The breakdown by source:
• Giving by individuals comprised 69 percent of total giving in 2020.
• Giving by bequest accounted for 9 percent of all gifts made in 2020.
• Giving by foundations—which includes grants made by independent, community, and operating foundations—amounted to 19 percent of all gifts made in 2020.
• Giving by corporations comprised 3 percent of total giving in 2020.
8 Interesting highlights from the report:
• $11.24 billion of the total $44.91 billion given by estates came from estates with a total value below $1 million.
• Charitable giving by corporations decreased by an estimated 6.1% in 2020 from 2019.
• 28% of all donations received by charities went to Religion.
• Human services organizations analyzed by Blackbaud Institute saw a 45.8% increase in online giving between 2019 and 2020. Online revenue to hunger and poverty relief organizations increased 173% between 2019 and 2020.
• Of the $24.7 billion given to Foundations (Community Foundations, supporting Foundations, etc.), 51.7% of that was given by the top 50 donors – this category is being largely driven by “mega gifts.”
• In current dollars, giving to health increased 6.3% between 2018 and 2019, and decreased 3% between 2019 and 2020. Dollars given to research make up a significant portion of this category and were down 11%.
• Racial justice and voter engagement was a key driver in the growth of giving to Public-Society Benefit organizations.
• Giving to the Arts, Culture, & Humanities sector decreased by 7.5 percent – in previous crisis years the sector saw double digit drops.
For more information or to purchase the full report, visit givingusa.org.