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A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide for wealthy investors and consumers. Register to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Donors gave about $617.2 billion to U.S. charities last year, up 5.7% from the previous year, following a meteoric rise in the stock market, according to a Giving USA report released this week.
These results mark the first time annual giving has exceeded $600 billion in the 60-year history of the annual philanthropy report, published by the Giving USA Foundation. Adjusted for inflation, donations increased by 3% year-on-year.
The effect of the stock market boom, however, was more pronounced among deep-pocketed donors. Individual donors still account for the largest share of contributions, at $394.2 billion, but that sum increased just 1.4% in inflation-adjusted dollars, while charitable bequests – donations made after death – jumped 16.6% to an estimated $62.19 billion.
The increase in bequests could be the last signal of the great transfer of wealth. Cerulli Associates estimates that more than $124 trillion in assets will be passed on by 2048, with approximately $18 trillion allocated to charity.
Jon Bergdoll, the report’s lead analyst, said it was too early to say how much of the increase in legacy giving was due to mass wealth transmission.
What’s clearer, Bergdoll said, is that wealthy Americans, the most likely to leave large sums to charity, are the biggest beneficiaries of the stock market boom.
“There’s still a pretty strong connection between bequest and overall net worth, which in turn is pretty tied to the market,” said Bergdoll, interim director of data and research partnerships at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, who is researching and writing the report.
The impact of the stock market on overall giving, which includes foundation and corporate giving, is slower and more muted. That said, Bergdoll said he expected a larger increase in donations given the past few years of strong market growth. Between 2024 and 2025, the S&P 500 index jumped 13.4% in inflation-adjusted dollars, or about four times the growth rate of total donations, according to the report.
He attributed much of the gap between paper wealth and total donations to weak gross domestic product growth and low consumer confidence.
“It’s a somewhat strange economy for this stock market growth,” he said. “While the market is doing well and the GDP is doing well, it seems like there’s a lot of unease. We know that giving comes from a place of financial security for people, and so that might dampen things a little bit on the individual side.”
Bergdoll added that it would be detrimental to the nonprofit sector if charitable donations also followed inventory fluctuations. closely.
“We wouldn’t want it to be a one-on-one relationship,” he said. “Even though we want donations to increase by 20% when the market goes up by 20%, we really don’t want donations to go down by 20% when the market goes down by 20%.”
Many high earners were expected to make donations in 2025 to take advantage of tax benefits expected to diminish due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Bergdoll said the increase was significant but small compared to overall contributions. The report estimates that donors gave an additional $1.71 billion in 2025 to take full advantage of expiring tax incentives.
As U.S. charities receive more dollars, they are increasingly reliant on the ultra-rich as economic pressures weigh on middle-class donors. The report estimates that nine donors contributed to a whopping $22.32 billion in total philanthropy last year. MacKenzie Scott, a philanthropist and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, contributed the largest share, $6.65 billion.
Megadonations from these donors, or their contributions representing at least 0.1% of total giving, can reshape philanthropy year after year. Nearly a third of the increase in bequest giving came from the estate of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who established a $3.1 billion fund for science and technology research.
Gabe Cooper, vice president of the Giving USA Foundation, told CNBC he has mixed feelings about megagifts.
“Do I like it when the Paul Allens and MacKenzie Scotts of the world commit to giving away a large portion of their wealth? Yes, 100%, and I wish more billionaires would do the same,” said Cooper, who is also CEO of fundraising platform Virtuous. “On the other hand, I don’t want that number to rise too much. I don’t want an increasing reliance on the mega-rich, whose giving habits might be more volatile from year to year.”
While increased bequests are a boon for philanthropy, Cooper has his eye on the bigger prize: heirs.
“If a billionaire dies and he gives $200 million to charity, the other $800 million will probably go to his children, and so I want those children to make really good decisions in terms of philanthropy,” he said.