The $617 billion that Americans gave to everything from churches to cat rescues was the second-highest ever in inflation-adjusted terms, but it fell short of the record set in 2021, when there was a burst of social services giving in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This growth was slightly faster than the long-term annual average of 2.7%, thanks to the nation’s relatively strong – if mixed – economy. While the stock market performed well in 2025 and personal income rose, consumer sentiment was extremely low and inflation remained above the Fed’s 2% target.

As part of my job researching trends in philanthropy and nonprofits, I’ve been the lead analyst for over a decade of this annual report from the Giving USA Foundation, produced in partnership with the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. In recent years it’s grown clearer that as giving grows, the kinds of donations the wealthy favor are gaining ground.

Bequests and foundations led overall growth

Charitable bequests – gifts to causes that happen after someone dies – represented about 10% of all U.S. giving in 2025, up from 9% in 2024. They grew by 16.6% to $62 billion in 2025, faster than all other sources of donations. Bequeathed gifts have exceeded $50 billion every year since 2022, growing significantly in three of the past four years.

There are several possible reasons for this increase. One is the impending passing of tens of trillions of dollars in wealth from people over 65 to their younger heirs, often called the “great wealth transfer.” However, the total value of charitable bequests may be rising simply because stocks have been performing better than normal for several years. The stock market boom has increased the net worth of the estates of the wealthiest Americans, who are the main people making these gifts after death.

This value does vary greatly year to year, partly because even a single very large bequest can significantly skew the total amount. And when these changes will occur is unpredictable due to the complexity of multibillion-dollar estates, which can get paid out several years after a wealthy person dies. For example, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who died in 2018, was among the largest donors of 2025 due to the $3.1 billion bequest his estate made.

Giving by foundations also tends to respond to strong stock market growth. By law, private foundations must spend at least 5% of their assets for charitable purposes, primarily through grants to nonprofits, to retain their tax-exempt status. Endowment growth tends to boost what foundations disburse.

Giving by foundations, which accounted for about 1 in 5 dollars given to charity in 2025, rose by 3% to $117 billion – an all-time high, even when adjusting for inflation. Giving by foundations has not decreased in any year in real terms since 2010.

Giving by individuals, whether they’re rich, poor or in between, is clearly influenced by consumer sentiment and other trends that affect typical households more directly. And consumer sentiment declined in 2025 to the lowest annual level ever recorded.

Giving by individuals grew by 1.4% in 2025, though that share of charitable giving has gradually shrunk. It dipped to 64% of the total in 2025 – the second-lowest share of total giving ever.

Corporate giving was responsible for around 7% of all charitable gifts made in 2025 – a record high. It totaled $44 billion in 2025, up 0.5% from a year earlier. Giving by corporations has grown by almost 30% since 2020 in inflation-adjusted terms.

Most kinds of donations increased

Donations to seven of the nine charitable categories that Giving USA tracks grew.

One exception was gifts to houses of worship and religious institutions. Religious giving was essentially flat in inflation-adjusted terms, with a 0.2% decline. That’s in keeping with a long-term trend.

Religious giving has barely budged in the U.S. over the past two decades, increasing by only 1.2% since 2005. That pace is the most sluggish of all the categories we track. Even so, the $152 billion Americans gave to congregations and other religious institutions remains by far the largest category. It accounted for 23% of all donations in 2025.

The other exception was gifts to foundations, which fell 18.3% in 2025 after surging to their second-highest level ever in 2024. In 2025 they represented 12% of all giving, totaling $79 billion.

Giving to social services nonprofits, such as food banks and homeless shelters, grew 2.6% in 2025, reaching almost $100 billion. That marked a record high and represented 15% of all giving.

Giving to education and public-society benefit causes, categories associated with wealthier donors, grew the most in 2025.

Charitable gifts for education, which primarily support colleges and universities, grew 8.9% – faster than any other category in 2025. They totaled $92 billion, an all-time high.

Public-society benefit giving grew by 8.7% to $72 billion. This category consists of organizations serving the public more generally, such as advocacy organizations, independent research institutions and donor-advised funds, which function as charitable investment accounts.

Giving to several other categories reached record highs, including the $61 billion Americans donated to hospitals and other health-related causes; the $27 billion they gave to the arts; and $25 billion dispatched to nonprofits tied to the environment and animals.

While charitable donations did grow broadly in 2025, the giving categories the wealthiest Americans tend to favor – bequests, foundations, education, public-society benefit organizations – fared better than usual. Giving by less affluent U.S. donors – gifts from individuals and donations to religious institutions – lagged.

Beginning in 2026, however, virtually all U.S. taxpayers will have some incentive to make charitable gifts due to the addition of the universal charitable deduction as part of President Donald Trump’s big package of tax and spending measures that Republican lawmakers passed in July 2025. That should increase the number of donors who make modest gifts to charity.

Jon Bergdoll, Interim Director of Data & Research Partnerships at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.