Fundraising Update

Welcome to Fundraising Update. This week, we look at the good, bad, and the ugly from the Giving USA report — and why it matters in a turbulent 2025. Plus, fundraising has been a challenge for nonprofits in regions hit hard by federal spending cuts and government job losses.

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.

Charities received $592.5 billion in donations in 2024, a 3.3 percent increase over 2023, after adjusting for inflation, according to the most recent “Giving USA” report, whose key findings were released Tuesday. The report, which takes a comprehensive look at U.S. philanthropy, noted that overall, it was a good year for giving, with only one major cause — religion — seeing an inflation-adjusted decline in giving.

But this may be small comfort to nonprofits that in 2025 have already seen a significant drop in federal funding, more than 20,000 layoffs, increased demand for services, and market uncertainty that has led some donors to pull back.

Una Osili, an associate dean at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, which compiles the research for the report, told me there are important takeaways nonprofits can draw from last year’s data as they navigate 2025.

Mid-Ohio Food Collective

Chief among them: The economy ended 2024 in a strong position. This may lead both foundations and individual donors who give from market gains to be generous. But Osili admits that 2025 is somewhat different from past cycles of economic contraction.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of volatility, especially on financial markets,” she says. “When you’re not sure exactly what’s happening and the news is changing, that sometimes leads to donors just being uncertain and not acting. Uncertainty can dampen giving.”

In interviews, many fundraisers have told the Chronicle that their organization’s 2024 fundraising results were good, but that uncertainty was leading to mixed results this year. Some donors are stepping up to fill gaps, while others have pulled back. Some have shifted their giving to causes they feel need more help. Most nonprofits expressed concern about the second half of 2025. They’re worried an economic slide coupled with lingering uncertainty will dampen giving when nonprofits need it most.

Last year marked a return to typical giving patterns, says Jon Bergdoll, managing director for Giving USA. The pandemic and the high inflation of recent years were atypical, he says, which meant giving patterns didn’t always align with traditional models. In 2024, things lined up as expected.

“The fundamentals of giving are still working like they historically have in the U.S.,” Bergdoll says. “We’ve been through a lot of changes, and there’s potentially more on the horizon, but it is important to take comfort in that we are still seeing the same things move and shift giving that 20 years ago moved and shifted giving.”

For more on Giving USA, including how nonprofits are thinking about 2025 fundraising, read my entire story.

$900,000
— Amount fundraising is down this year at Miriam’s Kitchen, a nonprofit in D.C.

Many nonprofits are reeling from federal funding cuts — and are holding their breath in an uncertain economy, wondering how they would respond to a potential recession.

There are signs that the national economy is starting to slow. But several parts of the country have already experienced some of the economic pain that comes with a recession. Both the Washington, D.C., and Atlanta regions have had significant federal work force cuts due to DOGE, as well as private job losses from reduced government contracts.

“We were not anticipating 2025 to be as difficult of a year as it was,” says Scott Schenkelberg, CEO of Miriam’s Kitchen, a Washington nonprofit working to end homelessness. “People have literally lost income because they’ve lost their jobs, either because they were a direct federal government employee or they were working for an organization relying on government funding.”

That’s caused the giving environment in the city to change profoundly. The same is true in Atlanta, says Wesley Myrick, executive director of the Georgia Interfaith Public Policy Center.

“Without that stability, it’s a very challenging proposition to raise individual dollars, corporate dollars, or philanthropic dollars,” he says.

While nonprofits have managed through recessions before, this time feels different, says Liz Livingston Howard, executive director of the Kellogg School Center for Nonprofit Management at Northwestern University.

One difference: The number of donors has been declining over the past decade. “That would not have been the case in previous recessions,” Howard says. “This is a unique moment in time for fundraising as we look at the raw number of donors going down, the increased influence of high-net-worth individuals, and the uncertain economy all at the same time.”

To learn more about how nonprofits are faring at their fundraising, read the rest of my story.

• AI May Be Assessing Part of Your Grant Application. Program officers at more than 130 grant makers are using a new artificial intelligence tool to assess the financial health of prospective grantee organizations, reports my colleague M.J. Prest.

  The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, a $1.5 billion philanthropy, developed Grant Guardian in-house and released it publicly earlier this year. It gives the technology away for free to other foundations as part of its mission to use data and AI to accelerate social good.

  “Foundations often have limited time and resources to thoroughly assess financial stability,” says Vilas Dhar, president of the McGovern Foundation, who explains that the tool generates instant financial reports that would take program officers weeks to compile by hand. “We’re trying to take [on] the menial tasks of doing financial diligence and allow program officers to have that strategic, high-level viewpoint so they can streamline the entire process.”

  To learn more about the software, read M.J.’s complete article.

Rowland Winton Evans pledged $28 million to Vassar College to back programs in the music department, bolster scholarships, and support campus maintenance. The money will be used to establish and endow the Rowland W. Evans ’75 Student Lesson Fund, which will subsidize the cost of individual instrument lessons for students, and the Rowland W. Evans ’75 Concert Fund, which will pay for the music department’s annual concert programming.

Rowland Winton Evans earned a degree in history of Vassar in 1975 and is a jazz musician.

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.

Tips for Winning 6-Figure Grants in a Competitive Climate. This year, the competition for large foundations’ attention is fierce. Here are key strategies to stand out in a crowded field.

Word Jumble: When Nonprofits Talk Fancy, America Tunes Out. (Opinion) Our language is packed with elite-sounding jargon. It is ineffective — and dangerous — amid today’s heightened distrust of institutions and growing hostility to the sector.

Corporate Support Dries Up for Diversity. The Trump administration has made its disapproval of diversity initiatives very clear. Some nonprofits that support such initiatives have seen their corporate funding dry up, according to ABC News.

Norman Harris, executive director of the Juneteenth Music Festival Corporation in Denver told ABC News he has organized Juneteenth festivals for more than a decade but 2025 has been the “most challenging” because 12 major corporate sponsors who previously supported the Denver festival pulled out this year. “What it made us do was to figure out on the fly, you know, how we were going to sustain this year’s celebration,” Harris told ABC. “So what we decided on was that we’d have to shorten the normal two-day street festival to one day.”

The report also noted that San Diego’s Juneteenth celebration lost funding. An article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported similar issues for that city’s Juneteenth celebration, noting the event was almost canceled due to the loss of corporate sponsors. (ABC News)