The Giving USA 2026 Report Deserves a Closer Look
-By Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D.
The headline from Giving USA 2026 is easy to remember: charitable giving in the United States reached an estimated $617.20 billion in 2025, up 5.7% in current dollars and 3.0% after adjusting for inflation. That is a milestone worth celebrating. Yet the more useful question for fundraisers is not simply what happened, but what the numbers suggest about the year ahead.
This blog is an extension of our earlier podcast, Giving USA 2026: The Headlines Every Fundraiser Should Know, featuring Christina Daniken, Research Associate and Editor-in-Chief of Giving USA at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. That first conversation focused on the main findings. This one takes a deeper look at what the findings mean for fundraising strategy.
The first lesson is simple: fundraisers should keep starting with individuals. Giving USA 2026 shows that all four source categories grew in current dollars, but individuals still represent the largest share of charitable support, and bequests posted the strongest growth among the four sources. In the school’s summary, individuals gave $394.2 billion, bequests reached $62.19 billion, foundations gave $117.15 billion, and corporations gave $43.67 billion. Those figures reinforce a familiar truth: strong fundraising begins with people, not categories.
That point matters because too many organizations still default to institutional prospects first. Foundations and corporations remain important, but sustainable philanthropy depends on a healthy base of individual support. The more robust the individual donor pipeline, the more credible the organization becomes to other funders as well. Giving USA’s own reporting notes that charitable giving remained strong even in a complex economy, and that financial markets played an important role in the year’s growth.
The second lesson is that planned giving deserves a larger place in fundraising strategy. Bequest giving rose nearly 20% in current dollars and 16.6% after inflation in the 2026 report, a striking reminder that legacy giving is no longer a side conversation. The longer-term trend also matters: bequests have increased 20% or more in current dollars in three of the last four years. Fundraisers who treat planned giving as an afterthought are missing one of the clearest growth areas in philanthropy.
That is exactly why The Fund Raising School continues to build planned giving, donor engagement, and research-based fundraising into our professional development offerings. Fundraisers need tools that help them recognize the right prospects, ask better questions, and connect giving opportunities to donor motivation. The numbers in Giving USA do not just describe the sector. They point to the skills the sector needs.
The third lesson is that the “wealth effect” still matters. The report attributes part of the increase in charitable giving to strong financial markets, and that matters for fundraisers: when households feel stronger financially, giving often follows. That does not mean organizations should wait for the market to do the work. This means development teams should pay attention to the broader economic environment and adjust expectations, timing, and messaging accordingly.
A final takeaway involves sector mix. Giving USA 2026 shows especially strong growth in education, public-society benefit, and environment/animals, while religion remained comparatively flat in inflation-adjusted terms. That does not point to one universal fundraising lesson, but this does underscore a broader truth: donor priorities are shifting, and organizations need to stay close to those changes rather than assuming yesterday’s patterns will hold forever.
The headlines matter, but the analysis beyond the headlines matters more. Giving USA 2026 tells fundraisers that generosity remains strong, individuals still power American philanthropy, bequests are gaining momentum, and economic confidence continues to shape giving. The best response is not alarm. The best response is disciplined, relationship-centered fundraising grounded in data.
Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., serves as director and Rosso Fellow of The Fund Raising School within the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, where he also serves as senior assistant dean for external relations.