U.S. charitable giving reached a record $617.2 billion in 2025

Americans gave an estimated $617.2 billion to charity in 2025, the first time annual U.S. giving has exceeded $600 billion, according to the latest Giving USA report. The record total shows how rising markets and large fortunes are playing a bigger role in nonprofit funding.

The Giving USA Foundation, which publishes the annual report, said giving rose 5.7% from the prior year. After adjusting for inflation, donations increased 3%.

Individual donors remained the largest source of charitable dollars, contributing $394.2 billion, according to the report. But that category rose only 1.4% in inflation-adjusted terms, while charitable bequests — gifts made after death — climbed 16.6% to an estimated $62.19 billion.

Giving USA’s lead analyst, Jon Bergdoll, said the figures reflect the close connection between wealth, estates and financial markets. Bergdoll is interim director of data and research partnerships at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, which researches and writes the report.

“There’s always a pretty tight connection between bequest and overall net worth, which in turn, is pretty connected to the market,” Bergdoll told CNBC.

Market gains helped, but unevenly

The report linked the rise in giving to a strong stock market, though the benefit was concentrated among wealthy donors and their estates. Giving USA said the S&P 500 rose 13.4% in inflation-adjusted dollars between 2024 and 2025, about four times the rate of growth in total giving.

Bergdoll told CNBC he had expected a larger increase in donations after several years of market strength. He pointed to slower growth in gross domestic product and weak consumer sentiment as possible restraints on giving by individuals.

“While the market’s doing well, and GDP is doing OK, it does seem like there is a lot of unease,” Bergdoll said. “We know that giving comes from a place of financial security for people, and so that could be dragging things down a little bit on the individual end.”

He also said nonprofits would not benefit from donations moving in lockstep with stocks, because that would expose charities more directly to market downturns. “We wouldn’t want it to be a one-for-one relationship,” Bergdoll told CNBC.

Bequests point to wealth transfer

The increase in estate gifts may be an early sign of the Great Wealth Transfer, according to CNBC’s report on the Giving USA findings. Cerulli Associates estimates that more than $124 trillion in assets will be transferred by 2048, including about $18 trillion designated for charity.

Bergdoll said it is too soon to determine how much of the jump in bequests is tied to that broader transfer of wealth. Giving USA also estimated that donors gave an additional $1.71 billion in 2025 to take fuller advantage of tax incentives scheduled to expire under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The report found that a small number of donors accounted for a large share of the total. Nine donors contributed $22.32 billion in 2025, according to Giving USA. MacKenzie Scott gave the largest amount among them, at $6.65 billion.

Large gifts can shift the yearly totals, the report said. Nearly one-third of the increase in bequest giving came from the estate of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, which created a $3.1 billion fund for science and technology research.

Gabe Cooper, vice chair of the Giving USA Foundation and chief executive of fundraising platform Virtuous, told CNBC that large gifts help charities but can also increase reliance on a small group of donors. He said he wants more billionaires to give away wealth, while warning that megadonor giving can vary sharply from year to year.

Cooper said the next major question for philanthropy is how heirs use inherited wealth. If a billionaire leaves a portion of an estate to charity and the rest to children, he told CNBC, those heirs’ future giving decisions will matter for nonprofits.

This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.