Charitable Giving Statistics

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Americans gave $557.16 billion in 2023. This reflects a 2.1% decline from 2022.¹
Corporate giving in 2023 increased to $36.55 billion—a 3.0% increase from 2022.¹
Foundation giving in 2023 increased to $103.53 billion—a 1.7% increase from 2022.¹
Giving by bequest in 2023 was $42.68 billion—a 8.0% increase from 2022.¹
In 2023, the largest source of charitable giving came from individuals, who gave $374.40 billion, representing 67% of total giving.¹
In 2023, the majority of charitable dollars went to religion (24%), human services (14%), education (14%), grantmaking foundations (13%) and public-society benefit (10%).¹
Giving in 2023 increased in many sectors, with double-digit growth in gifts for foundations (15.4%), public-society benefit (11.6%) and education (11.1%). Giving declined precipitously to individuals (-17.2%).¹

For middle income earners, the average yearly charitable donation is approximately $3,296.²
The average charitable donor in the U.S. is 64 years old and makes two charitable donations a year.³
The average high net worth households donated $34,917 to nonprofits in 2022.⁴
85 percent of affluent households maintained or increased their giving in 2022, with the top motivation for giving reported as personal values and beliefs (69.5%).⁴
Younger people want to forge their own philanthropic identity separate from their parents, said 88% of young women and 69% of young men surveyed.⁵
The majority of donors (64%) prefer to give online with either a credit or debit card.⁶

According to the most recent data available, there are more than 1.8 million recognized 501(c) organizations in the United States.⁷
In 2023, 501(c)(3) organizations made up the majority of 501(c) organizations in the U.S., with 1.5 million.⁷
As of 2017, there were more than 12 million people employed in the U.S. nonprofit sector.⁸
There are approximately 340K religious, 255K educational, 154K human services, 129K arts & culture and 64.5K public-society benefit nonprofit organizations in the U.S. in 2024. The least common nonprofit category, with only 9 reported, is mutual assistance research institutes.⁹

An estimated 23.2% of U.S. adults—60.7 million Americans—volunteered between September 2020 and 2021, contributing an estimated 4.1 billion hours valued at approximately $122.9 billion.¹⁰
Generation X had the highest rate of formal volunteering (27%) compared to Gen Z, Millennials, and Baby Boomers.¹⁰
Baby Boomers had the highest rate of informal volunteering (59%).¹⁰
Most people volunteer through a nonprofit organization (61%), but others volunteer through helping someone directly (29%), a religious organization (24%), civic organizations (22%), the workplace (10%), or a school where they’re enrolled (9%).¹¹

There were 1,948,545 donor-advised fund accounts in 2022.¹²
Donor-advised funds held $228.89 billion in assets in 2022.¹²
Total contributions into donor-advised funds were $85.53 billion in 2022.¹²
Donor-recommended grants from donor-advised funds totaled more than $52.16 billion to charities in 2022.¹²
The average donor-advised fund account size was $117,466 in 2022.¹²
The average payout rate for DAFs was 22.5% in 2022.¹²
Compare the DAF payout rate to the mean payout rate of foundations in 2023: 7.5%.¹³