Fundraising Update

Welcome to Fundraising Update. This week, the Philanthropy 50, the Chronicle’s annual list of America’s biggest donors, is out, and we look at the mega-donors of the future. Plus, we dig into why the Trump administration cuts are different from the cuts to social services under President Reagan.

I’m Rasheeda Childress, senior editor for fundraising at the Chronicle of Philanthropy. If you have ideas, comments, or questions about this newsletter, please write me.

Thanks to our sponsor DonorPerfect for supporting Fundraising Update.

There’s an adage about the traditional approach to giving: Spray, pray, and walk away.

A new wave of mega-donors has turned all of that on its head, report my colleagues Stephanie Beasley and Eden Stiffman. Michael Moody, professor of philanthropic studies at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and co-author of Generation Impact: How Next Gen Donors Are Revolutionizing Giving, has been studying this new crop of donors.

“They don’t want to spray. They want to focus on those causes or solutions and innovations that they find interesting,” Moody says. “They don’t want to pray that it happens. They want to be there helping it actually happen with their hands and their talent. And they don’t want to walk away. They want to stick with it and roll up their sleeves and work alongside people to find a solution.”

Illustration by Sean McCabe for The Chronicle. Images via Mark Mann / August Image, LLC; Anna Maxwell; Courtesy Katherine Lorenz.

The average age of a donor on this year’s Philanthropy 50 ranking is 73.5. And to rank on this year’s Philanthropy 50 list, donors gave at least $50 million in 2024. Young donors on the list include Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, who are both 40, as well as Sergey Brin, Sheryl Sandberg, and John and Laura Arnold, who are all 51, and the Pagidipati siblings — Sidd, 49; Rahul, 47; and Srujani, 45.

While many major donors in their 30s, 40s, and 50s aren’t giving at that level, they’re serious about giving today and are poised to continue shaping philanthropy in the decades to come. They also aren’t limiting themselves to one kind of giving vehicle, instead seeking to make a difference in multiple ways, including setting up donor-advised funds, family foundations, LLCs, and 501(c)(4)s.

Whether self-made CEOs or inheritors of multigenerational wealth, many are earnest about changing deeply entrenched systems of injustice in areas like health and gender equity and education. As such, they want to learn from and collaborate with peer donors. Though many still give to big institutions, they’re looking for ways to empower people to create change, often by seeking opportunities to collaborate with other donors and the communities they’d like to reach. Many are adopting approaches that ease restrictions on grantees and trust leaders close to the problems they seek to solve, but they still want to see evidence that their philanthropy is effective.

“There’s an opportunity to update the toolkit when it comes to how we’re giving,” says Andrew Dayton, 41, a donor who founded the Constellation Fund, a grant maker that uses data and evidence-based approaches to reduce poverty in the Twin Cities area.

Networks of ultrawealthy philanthropists say they’re increasingly connecting with younger donors who tend to want to work more collaboratively than earlier generations of funders.

Over the last five years, Forward Global, a group that advises wealthy individuals on their giving, has seen the average age of its members drop by 10 to 15 years, says CEO Renee Kaplan. About 65 percent of its members are women.

The bulk of the members of the Donors of Color Network are in their 30s to late 50s, says Isabelle Leighton, the group’s executive director.

And Women Moving Millions, a donor network whose members commit to giving $1 million or more to efforts that help women and girls, counts 50 percent of its membership as being under 60.

For more about the new donors coming on the scene, read Stephanie and Eden’s article. More Philanthropy 50 coverage, including the list of the top 50 donors of 2024, can be found here.

— Kacee Shuler, director of donor engagement at Catholic Charities of Onondaga County

Federal funding seemed to vanish overnight. Mass layoffs and desperate appeals from charities soon followed, beseeching donors to “pick up the slack.” Headlines blared dire warnings about nonprofits on the verge of a nervous breakdown: “Budget cuts deal charities double blow.”

The year was not 2025, but 1981.

In the name of balancing the federal budget, the Reagan administration unleashed sweeping budget cuts that defunded nonprofit programs and caused layoffs at organizations across the nation. Now, as the Trump administration attempts to cut federal spending for countless organizations, the parallels are stark — but the playbook couldn’t be more different, reports my colleague Sara Herschander.

Where Reagan encouraged private philanthropy as an alternative to government funding, experts say the Trump administration has offered no such vision or lifeline, leaving anxious nonprofits to navigate perilous terrain.

“The rhetoric of this administration not only doesn’t have a philosophy about the role of the private sector, but it is just downright nasty,” said Leslie Lenkowsky, an emeritus professor of public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University.

The extent of Trump’s proposed cuts and funding freezes is still being litigated — and if Reagan’s cuts offer any guidance, some may never come to pass. But they’ve already sent shockwaves through the nonprofit sector.

“We have been through many administrations. There have been cuts and rollbacks throughout the history of our resettlement program, but this is unprecedented,” said Kacee Shuler, director of donor engagement at Catholic Charities of Onondaga County, which was forced to lay off or furlough 50 staff members involved in refugee resettlement after the administration refused to reimburse over $1 million in federal funds.

While individual donors have rushed to fill some gaps, Shuler warns against expecting private philanthropy to replace government support. “Our donors are incredible. They’re very supportive. We’ve actually had a large increase in new donors over the last few weeks,” she said. “But a big misconception I’m seeing on social media is the idea that donors should fill every gap left by these funding cuts and freezes. Donors are not ATM machines.”

For more on how Trump’s cuts differ from those of the Reagan era, read all of Sara’s story.

• MacArthur Foundation to increase giving. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation will increase its giving over the next two years in response to what it calls a “crisis” prompted by the Trump administration’s freeze on federal foreign aid and the now-suspended freeze on federal grants, reports Thalia Beatty, who covers philanthropy at our partner the Associated Press.

  “This is a major crisis for our sector and it’s a time when those of us who can do more should do more,” said John Palfrey, president of MacArthur Foundation, in an interview with the Associated Press.

  Palfrey announced the increase in a blog post on the foundation’s website, saying, “The cliff of funding from federal programs has sent budgets underwater in field after field, and people and communities in the United States and abroad will suffer.”

  Palfrey said the foundation would increase giving from 5 percent of its endowment, which is the minimum required by the Internal Revenue Service, to at least 6 percent for the next two years. The foundation reported it had $8.7 billion in assets in 2023, and it pays out around $400 million annually. Palfrey said he expected to grant out around $150 million more over the next two years. For more on MacArthur’s giving increases, read the rest of Thalia’s story.

Jonathan Murraygave $10.3 million to the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism. The funds will expand professional and educational programs available to undergraduate and graduate students and make filmmaking resources available to the center’s alumni.

Murray, who gave $6.7 million in 2014 to establish the center, co-founded Bunim-Murray Productions, an entertainment production company that popularized the reality television genre with shows such as “The Real World,” “Project Runway,” and “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” Murray earned a journalism degree from the university in 1977.

For other notable gifts this week, read my colleague Maria Di Mento’s Gifts Roundup column. To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly and has data going back to 2000.

‘Don’t Tell Your Strategy': Bernice King Has Advice for Nonprofit Leaders. “I think everybody has to start looking at language,” says the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. “It doesn’t mean you have to go do away with your core mission, but you’re going to have to wordsmith to get through this season.”

What Fundraisers Can Learn From Jerry Falwell and the Conservative Movement. (Opinion)The Moral Majority’s long-game strategy offers a framework for fundraisers seeking sustainable success, regardless of their politics.

Charity takes its funding case to the people. The International Rescue Committee, a global relief and development nonprofit founded in 1933 by Albert Einstein and others, published a full-page ad in the New York Times seeking donations to help overcome the Trump administration funding freeze, Reuters reports.

“The IRC is calling on the American public to support our efforts to mitigate the impact of these cuts for people in critical need around the world,” the advertisement said. It noted 46 of the IRC’s government grants had received notices of termination, which meant at least 2 million people would not have access to critical services across multiple crisis zones, including Sudan, Nigeria, and Afghanistan.

The ad asked donors to “meet the moment” and give via their preferred method, including donor-advised funds, stock accounts, foundations, checks, or credit cards.

“Children will suffer, as food from hardworking American farmers sits idle in warehouses,” the IRC advertisement said. “Preventable tragedies, like deaths from treatable diseases, will occur daily. This is a humanitarian catastrophe — a matter of life and death for people already in crisis.” (Reuters)