Catenaa, Sunday, July 05, 2026- US charitable giving reached a record $617.2 billion in 2025, according to a new report from the Giving USA Foundation.
About $394 billion, or 64%, of total contributions, came from individuals, up 1.4% when adjusted for inflation compared with the year prior.
Foundation giving, which often reflects billionaire philanthropy, climbed nearly 3% to $117 billion. Giving through bequests jumped nearly 17% after adjusting for inflation.
The increase likely reflects, in part, the strong performance of financial markets in recent years, which boosted the value of estates, Amir Pasic, Dean of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, told Fortune.
Overall, while charitable giving set a new high, it still lagged the explosive growth in billionaire wealth, which surged 16% in 2025.
The rise in bequests in particular, the report’s fastest-growing category, suggests philanthropy may be entering a new era and mark the beginning of the long-anticipated Great Wealth Transfer.
Roughly $124 trillion is expected to change hands to Millennials and Gen Xers by 2048, according to UBS, and that shift could dramatically reshape the future of giving.
As younger generations inherit more wealth, pressure to accelerate payouts and rethink how quickly charitable dollars move from donors to nonprofits is beginning to emerge.
In some cases, those conversations are already underway inside families, often shaped by a growing focus on wealth inequality and how philanthropy should function in a more polarized world, Melissa Stevens, Executive Vice President of Milken Institute Strategic Philanthropy, told Fortune.
She said younger donors are increasingly interested in deploying capital through impact investing, advocacy, and venture-style philanthropy, rather than traditional grantmaking alone.
Donors are also prioritizing trust-based giving, meaning that instead of telling recipients exactly how to spend their donations, they give unrestricted gifts, trusting nonprofits to know better than donors where the money will have the greatest impact.
Their priorities also tend to skew toward systemic issues such as climate change, racial justice, and gender equity, compared with older generations’ broader focus on health and education.
The shifting landscape is playing out most visibly at the top of the wealth pyramid, where some of the world’s richest individuals are dramatically scaling up their philanthropy. MacKenzie Scott has become one of the most prominent examples.
In 2025 alone, the 56-year-old philanthropist and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos gave away $19.2 billion, accounting for roughly one-third of all megagifts tracked that year.
DEI has been a major focus of her philanthropy, including an $80 million unrestricted gift to Howard University and a $40 million donation to the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.
Others, however, have been more openly skeptical about the mechanics of giving at scale.
Just last month, Elon Musk, whose net worth surged past $1 trillion earlier this year following the SpaceX IPO, attacked Scott directly, arguing her philanthropy is actually making the world “worse off.”
