— Average annual amount philanthropic advisors say they help clients funnel to charities
When P150, a network of advisors to ultra-wealthy donors, polled its 423 members on their clients’ 2024 giving, the number was staggering: $60 billion and counting. That’s about 9 percent of philanthropy.
And in a 2024 survey of 258 U.S.-based philanthropy advisors, respondents reported they facilitated another notable dollar amount: an average of $50 million over the last year.
Advisors to the ultra-wealthy are on the front lines of philanthropy, and their influence is growing, my colleague Eden Stiffman reports. Their services range from high-level help with strategic focus and overall spending targets, to fine-grain tactical help with legal filings or evaluating possible grantees. As wealth concentrates and more donors look for help starting or expanding their giving, a wide range of advisors — including wealth managers or legal experts — are benefiting.
But this growth field is raising concerns that the people who market themselves as philanthropy advisors don’t always have the necessary expertise.
“The capacity and expertise of those advisors to effectively guide their clients’ philanthropy is a bigger issue in the field than it has ever been before,” says Michael Moody, professor of philanthropic studies at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University, who says that over the last 20 years the advising industry has ballooned in response to growing demand from elite donors.
In one sign of how much money is set aside for philanthropy, donor-advised funds now hold at least $250 billion earmarked for charitable use. Private foundation assets hit $1.5 trillion last year. The advising field is growing on the promise it can help clients give bigger, better, and faster.
“The engine that’s running it all is more and more money is being infused into the nonprofit world,” says Rick Peck, an independent philanthropy advisor and board president of the International Association of Advisors in Philanthropy.
Donors have long relied on informal advisers to guide their giving — the philanthropic uncle or the friend who serves on a dozen boards. But as a professional field, it’s only a couple decades old.
Firms like Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Arabella Advisors, and the Bridgespan Group launched in the 2000s and helped pioneer this function in the nonprofit sector. Bridgespan currently has hundreds of staff, more than $200 million in assets, and has been enlisted by the likes of MacKenzie Scott to help give away her fortune.
Though it’s hard to get a sense of just how many people do this job and who they are, nearly 2,000 U.S. LinkedIn members identify themselves as “philanthropy advisors.”
For more on philanthropic advisers, read the rest of Eden’s story.
How effective can nonprofits be advocating on the Hill? Ever since President Trump attempted to pause federal funding, the nonprofit world has been aware that advocacy on Capitol Hill will be crucial to combating federal funding cuts.
My colleague Alex Daniels wrote about how much sway nonprofits currently have with Congress. To have any influence, nonprofits must increase their efforts to educate conservative lawmakers, says Steve Taylor, a principal at the advocacy firm Integer, who served as United Way Worldwide’s top D.C. lobbyist for more than a decade.
“Being at the table means having influence and dialogue with Republicans,” he says. “If the nonprofit sector links arms with their Democratic allies in Congress, and if fighting is their only approach, then they aren’t at the table.”
For more on the advocacy strategies nonprofits can take, read all of Alex’s article.
