Americans responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in extraordinary ways, helping to relieve the suffering of neighbors by donating a record amount to charities in 2020.

Total charitable giving grew 5.1% over 2019, as individuals, bequests, foundations, and corporations funneled an estimated $471.44 billion to U.S. charities, according to the Annual Report on Philanthropy, released this week by Giving USA, the longest-running and most comprehensive report on the sources and uses of charitable giving in America.

"Unprecedented developments in 2020 created widespread need and significantly increased the demand upon nonprofit organizations," said Laura MacDonald, CFRE, chair of Giving USA Foundation. "Remarkably, generous giving coupled with the stock market turnaround in the final months of the year boosted contributions. As a result, 2020 is the highest year of charitable giving on record."

"Growth in the S&P 500 in recent years and the market recovery in 2020 positioned foundations to respond to the year's challenges, with the result that giving by foundations reached its largest-ever share of total giving, at 19 percent," said Amir Pasic, Ph.D., the Eugene R. Tempel Dean of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, which conducted the research for the Giving Institute's report.

By the end of 2020, the S&P 500, which is closely related to giving, grew 16.3%, and personal income, a factor that is significantly linked to individual giving, grew 6.1%. Giving by foundations skyrocketed, and giving by individuals and bequests also showed growth.

"As we have seen in earlier years that included national crises or economic recessions, donors responded to urgent needs, and large-scale gifts as well as giving to COVID-19 relief and the racial justice movement helped drive the growth in individual and total charitable giving in 2020," said Una Osili, Ph.D., associate dean for research and international programs at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

"Nonprofit leaders and fundraising professionals played a role with significant innovation in fundraising methods and donor outreach in order to raise greater financial support under difficult circumstances. In addition, we saw a wide range of more informal philanthropic responses by individuals in 2020, including mutual aid efforts and person-to-person giving."

• Giving by individuals totaled an estimated $324.10 billion, rising 2.2% in 2020 (an increase of 1.0%, adjusted for inflation). Giving by individuals achieved its highest total dollar amount to date, adjusted for inflation.

• Giving by foundations increased 17.0%, to an estimated $88.55 billion (a growth rate of 15.6%, adjusted for inflation), reaching its highest-ever dollar amount. Giving by foundations, which has grown in nine of the last 10 years, represented 19% of total giving in 2020, its largest share on record.

• Giving by bequest was an estimated $41.19 billion in 2020, and grew 10.3% from 2019 (an increase of 9.0%, adjusted for inflation). Giving by bequest often fluctuates substantially from year to year.

"Human services organizations, which include charities that respond to hunger and basic needs, and public-society benefit organizations—which include United Ways and many organizations that focus on community development and civil rights—experienced strong growth," said Josh Birkholz, vice-chair of Giving USA Foundation. "Those are the types of charities that might come to mind first when thinking about giving to meet the needs that arose in 2020."

• Giving to human services increased by an estimated 9.7% in 2020, totaling $65.14 billion.

• Giving to foundations is estimated to have increased by 2.0% to $58.17 billion. Adjusted for inflation, giving to foundations was flat at 0.8% growth.

• Giving to public-society benefit organizations increased an estimated 15.7% to $48.00 billion. Adjusted for inflation, giving to public-society benefit organizations grew 14.3%. This category includes a wide range of charitable organizations, including national donor-advised funds, United Ways and civil rights organizations.

• Giving to environmental and animal organizations is estimated to have increased 11.6% to $16.14 billion. Adjusted for inflation, donations to the environment/animals subsector increased 10.3%.

• Giving to individuals is estimated to have grown 12.8% (11.5% in inflation-adjusted dollars) between 2019 and 2020, to $16.22 billion. The bulk of these donations are in-kind gifts of medications to patients in need, made through the patient assistance programs of pharmaceutical companies' operating foundations.

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