Giving USA: Total Charitable Donations Rise to New High of $390.05 Billion

Giving by individuals grows nearly 4 percent, driving the rise in total giving; contributions to all nine major philanthropy subsectors increase—the sixth time in the last four decades

CHICAGO [June 13, 2017]—American individuals, estates, foundations and corporations contributed an estimated $390.05 billion to U.S. charities in 2016, according to Giving USA 2017: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2016, released today.

Total giving rose 2.7 percent in current dollars (1.4 percent adjusted for inflation) from the revised estimate of $379.89 billion for total giving in 2015. (Please see below for a more detailed breakdown of the numbers for each philanthropic source and sector.)

Giving USA, the longest-running and most comprehensive report of its kind 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.

Charitable giving from individuals, foundations and corporations all increased in 2016, while gifts by estates decreased sharply.

Giving to all nine major categories of recipient organizations grew, making 2016 just the sixth time in the past 40 years that this has occurred. The nine categories are religion; education; human services; giving to foundations; health; public-society benefit; arts, culture and humanities; international affairs; and environment and animals.

“This report tells us that Americans remained generous in 2016, despite it being a year punctuated by economic and political uncertainty,” said Aggie Sweeney, CFRE, chair of Giving USA Foundation and senior counsel at Campbell & Company. “We saw growth in every major sector, indicating the resilience of philanthropy and diverse motivations of donors.”

The rise in total giving was spurred largely by giving from individuals, which increased nearly 4 percent in 2016.

“Individual giving continued its remarkable role in American philanthropy in a year that included a turbulent election season that reflected a globally resurgent populism,” said Amir Pasic, Ph.D., the Eugene R. Tempel Dean of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. “In this context, the absence of a dramatic change in giving is perhaps remarkable, but it also demonstrates the need for us to better understand the multitude of individual and collective decisions that comprise our record of national giving.”

While the political climate may play a role in some donors’ decisions to give to charity, research conducted by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and other philanthropy researchers has long demonstrated that aggregate giving trends are influenced by large-scale economic factors. These factors ultimately affect the economic and financial circumstances of all types of donors and, therefore, their ability to give.

As an example of the link between the economy and charitable giving trends, giving by individuals has historically correlated with changes in such national-level economic indicators as personal consumption, disposable personal income and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. All of these factors are associated with households’ permanent and long-term financial stability.

In 2016, helping to increase giving by individuals and households, both personal consumption and disposable personal income grew by nearly 4 percent over 2015. The S&P 500 finished the year up 9.5 percent after uneven performance for much of 2016 and a mixed economic picture in 2015.

“When compared with giving by individuals, corporate giving saw slightly more modest growth in 2016, at 3.5 percent,” said Jeffrey Byrne, Chair of The Giving Institute, and president and CEO of Jeffrey D. Byrne + Associates. “Corporate giving is significantly influenced by annual changes in pre-tax profits and Gross Domestic Product, which was up 3.0 percent, as compared with 3.7 percent in 2015 and 4.2 percent in 2014. Similarly, corporate pre-tax profits, which can be quite variable from year to year, grew 2.7 percent in 2016.”

Highlights about Giving by Source

• Giving by individuals grew at a higher rate than the other sources of giving, outpacing giving by foundations and by corporations, and offsetting the sharp decline in bequests.
• Giving by foundations rose more slowly in 2016 compared to the stronger increases seen in recent years, according to data provided by Foundation Center.
• Corporate giving increased modestly in 2016, in the wake of slower GDP growth and little movement in the share of pre-tax profits directed to giving.
• Giving by bequest fell sharply, following two years of strong growth. Gifts in the form of bequests frequently fluctuate from year to year and are less influenced by economic factors.

“In 2016, we saw something of a democratization of philanthropy,” said Patrick M. Rooney, Ph.D., associate dean for academic affairs and research at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. “The strong growth in individual giving may be less attributable to the largest of the large gifts, which were not as robust as we have seen in some prior years, suggesting that more of that growth in 2016 may have come from giving by donors among the general population compared to recent years.”

The Numbers for 2016 Charitable Giving by Source: 

• Giving by individuals totaled an estimated $281.86 billion, rising 3.9 percent (2.6 percent adjusted for inflation) in 2016. 

• Giving by foundations increased 3.5 percent (2.2 percent adjusted for inflation) to an estimated $59.28 billion in 2016. Data on foundation giving are provided by Foundation Center. 

• Giving by bequest totaled an estimated $30.36 billion in 2016, declining 9.0 percent (10.1 percent adjusted for inflation) from 2015.

• Giving by corporations is estimated to have increased by 3.5 percent (2.3 percent adjusted for inflation) in 2016, totaling $18.55 billion. 

New to this year’s edition of Giving USA is a special section on donor-advised funds, which provides analysis of major trends in both giving to and from these charitable vehicles.  

Highlights about 2016 Gifts to Charitable Organizations

For the charitable organizations receiving contributions, 2016 was a year of growth across the board.

• Giving to all nine major types of charitable organizations increased in 2016.
• Education giving saw relatively slower growth (3.6 percent) compared to the strong growth rates experienced in most post-recession years. In each of the years 2014 and 2015 education giving grew by more than 8 percent.
• Giving to international affairs, human services and public-society benefit organizations all grew. This growth is in spite of relatively few widely publicized natural disasters, which often increase contributions to these types of organizations.
• Environment and animals charities; arts, culture and humanities organizations; international affairs nonprofits; and health causes experienced the largest jumps in contributions. 

“In 2016, we saw a number of changes from patterns we have seen in recent years,” said Una Osili, Ph.D., director of research at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. “While giving to arts, health and the environment experienced significant growth, giving to education saw relatively slower growth. In most years, giving to education, arts and culture and health organizations often experience similar changes in growth rates, but in 2016 arts and health giving are both notably higher than giving to education. Giving for international affairs also saw growth even though there were lower levels of giving for disaster relief.”

The Numbers for 2016 Charitable Giving to Recipients: 

• Giving to religion increased 3.0 percent (1.8 percent adjusted for inflation), with an estimated $122.94 billion in contributions. 

• Giving to education is estimated to have increased 3.6 percent (2.3 percent adjusted for inflation) to $59.77 billion. 

• Giving to human services increased by an estimated 4.0 percent (2.7 percent adjusted for inflation), totaling $46.80 billion. 

• Giving to foundations is estimated to have increased by 3.1 percent (1.8 percent adjusted for inflation), rising to $40.56 billion. 

• Giving to health organizations is estimated to have increased by 5.7 percent (4.4 percent adjusted for inflation), to $33.14 billion. 

• Giving to public-society benefit organizations increased by an estimated 3.7 percent (2.5 percent adjusted for inflation) to $29.89 billion. 

• Giving to arts, culture, and humanities is estimated to have increased 6.4 percent (5.1 percent adjusted for inflation) to $18.21 billion. 

• Giving to international affairs is estimated to be $22.03 billion in 2016, an increase of 5.8 percent (4.6 percent adjusted for inflation). 

• Giving to environment and animal organizations is estimated to have increased 7.2 percent (5.8 percent adjusted for inflation) to $11.05 billion. 

In addition, giving to individuals is estimated to have declined 2.5 percent (3.7 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars) to $7.12 billion. The bulk of these donations are in-kind gifts of medications to patients in need, made through the Patient Assistance Programs (PAPs) of pharmaceutical companies’ operating foundations.

Unallocated giving was negative $1.46 billion in 2016. This amount can be considered as the difference between giving by source and by use in any particular year. This amount includes the difference between itemized deductions by individuals (and households) carried over from previous years. The tax year in which a gift is claimed by the donor (carried over) and the year when the recipient organization reports it as revenue (the year in which it is received) may be different.