by Patrick Schmitt
Co-CEO of FreeWill
Giving USA 2026 reported that Americans gave $617.2 billion to charity in 2025, up 5.7 percent (3.0 percent after inflation). That is a new high in current dollars and the second-highest total ever recorded once adjusted for inflation. The headline is good news, and every major source of giving grew. But underneath the topline sits one number you should pay close attention to this year: bequest giving rose almost 20 percent.
Here are five signals from the report and what they mean for fundraisers.
1. The Great Wealth Transfer is showing up in the data
Bequests reached $62.19 billion in 2025, up 19.7% (16.6% after inflation). That was the fastest growth of any giving source and the third double-digit year in the last four. Wendy McGrady, chair of the Giving USA Foundation, put it plainly to The Chronicle of Philanthropy: "you better be in the planned giving game, if you're not."
Many organizations have a legacy society but no operating plan for when gifts actually arrive. Now is the time to write or update a gift acceptance policy that covers real estate, business interests, retirement assets, and crypto. At FreeWill, more than 2,400 nonprofits use our tools to grow legacy giving, and the payoff isn't only long term: when someone includes a nonprofit in their estate plan, their annual giving to that nonprofit increases by about 75%.
Don't stop at wills. Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts take minutes and don't require an attorney, making them a natural next step for donors already giving through qualified charitable distributions. National Estate Planning Awareness Week (October 19 to 25) is an easy, low-cost moment to raise the topic with your supporters. As always, encourage donors to consult their own legal and tax advisors.
2. Don't misread the foundation headline
One number in this year's report will generate alarming coverage: giving to foundations fell 16.2% (18.3% after inflation). Look closer before you brief your board. That decline follows a 2024 that grew 32.6%, a near-record baseline, and the two-year arc from 2023 to 2025 is still a substantial net increase.
More importantly, giving to foundations is not giving by foundations. The grants nonprofits rely on grew 5.7% to $117.15 billion in 2025. Over the last five years, foundation grantmaking has grown at an annualized 7.3%, compared with 4% for individual giving. Foundations accounted for 7% of all giving in 1985. Today they account for 19%.
This shift has real implications for staffing and strategy. For many organizations, institutional funding is no longer a supplement to individual giving. It deserves dedicated capacity, a clear pipeline, and the same rigor you bring to major gifts.
3. Individual giving is concentrating at the top
In 1985, individuals gave 80 cents of every charitable dollar. In 2025, they gave 64 cents. Individual giving as a share of disposable income hit a 40-year low of 1.7%, and the number of everyday donor households has been shrinking for years. What fills the gap is larger gifts from fewer, wealthier donors.
Two responses make sense at once. First, be ready for transformational gifts. Mega-donors fund big visions, not budget gaps, so draft a one-page answer to the question "What would you do with $10 million?" and pressure-test it with your board chair. Second, keep investing in mid-level and everyday donors. They are your pipeline protection against a donor base that keeps narrowing.
4. DAFs must be prioritized
The S&P 500 fell roughly 19% to an April low after tariff announcements, then rebounded nearly 39% through year-end for a total return of 18%. Giving still hit a record. The lesson: don't pause appeals during a downturn. You can't time the market. Planned giving is also one of the few strategies that doesn't rise and fall with portfolios.
Meanwhile, public-society benefit giving grew 11.6% to $72.06 billion, and most of that reflects donor-advised fund (DAF) sponsor activity. Fidelity Charitable alone granted $18.3 billion in 2025, up 23%. DAFgiving360 granted $10 billion, up 28%. If DAF giving isn't visible on your donation page and named in your year-end appeals, you are leaving money on the table.
5. A decline in religiosity is reshaping the donor base
Religion remained the largest giving category at roughly $152 billion, but it was the only subsector to decline in real dollars (down 0.2% after inflation). Its share of total giving has fallen from 53% in 1985 to roughly a quarter today. According to PRRI, weekly church attendance fell to 26% in 2025, down from 31% in 2013, and 87% of church attendees donate to a church or charity, compared with just 50% of those who don't attend.
For organizations outside the faith sector, some of this giving may flow your way. The bigger issue is that the habit of giving isn't being passed down automatically anymore. Many older donors learned to give by watching their parents give at church. Younger generations need to learn it somewhere, and nonprofits are well positioned to teach it: show exactly what a dollar does, explain giving vehicles like wills, DAFs, stock, and QCDs, and invite whole families in.
For religious organizations, the most committed members are aging, and much of their giving capacity sits in non-cash assets. Planned giving and estate planning conversations will be how those organizations grow.
The takeaway: update your playbook
Share these findings with your board and executive director this month with our GivingUSA 2026 board briefing. This quarter, ask your board to:
- Confirm the organization has a named owner and a real budget for planned giving.
- Ask management whether legacy giving is actively marketed to donors, and review the script.
- Review revenue concentration: how dependent is the budget on a handful of large, market-linked gifts?
- Resist over-reacting to the foundation headline; evaluate your own funder mix on its merits.
The organizations that act on these trends, rather than just read them, will be the ones that benefit most.
Patrick Schmitt is co-CEO of FreeWill, which he and fellow FreeWill co-CEO Jenny Xia Spradling founded at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 2016. FreeWill’s charitable giving platform makes it easier for nonprofit fundraising teams to unlock transformational gifts, and to date, has generated over $15.2 billion in new gift commitments for thousands of nonprofit organizations. Patrick hosts FreeWill’s popular webinar series, educating thousands of nonprofit fundraising professionals each month about planned and non-cash giving strategies.
