'White-hot rage-giving': Donations hit a record high as Americans throw cash at nonprofits hurt by Trump admin cuts

“We found just a bunch of first-time givers in the four- and five-figure range that we had never had before,” Ryan Howlett, CEO of Friends of South Dakota Public Broadcasting, told NPR, describing what he calls “white-hot rage-giving.”

The gutting of public radio is one of a series of jabs the Trump administration has thrown at nonprofit organizations, which includes the dismantling of USAID and a $500 million cut in food allocations for food banks across the country.

These nonprofit cuts, along with political and financial turmoil that has beleaguered the last year, serve as the backdrop of Giving USA’s annual report on philanthropy for 2025, which found that charitable donations in the U.S. reached a record-breaking $617.2 billion in 2025, a 3% inflation-adjusted increase from the previous year.

$617.2 billion in context

The 2025 report puts charitable donations past the $600 billion mark for the first time in history, compared to $592.5 billion in 2024. It’s also the second year in a row that total donations increased when accounting for inflation — the inflation-adjusted total in 2023 marked a 2.1% decrease from the previous year.

However, the percentage of dollars that come from individuals has decreased over the last few years, from 67% in 2023 to 66% in 2024 and 64% in the most recent report. Meanwhile, one of the driving forces in the total donation increase was bequests, increasing by 19.7% after a significant drop 2024, an indicator of the impending “Great Wealth Transfer.”

Ultimately, the strongest influences on annual donation totals are often stock market returns and the country’s GDP, of which total donations generally make up 2%. Applying 2025’s donation total to the U.S.’ $30.77 trillion GDP in 2025 shakes out to 2.05%.

As for the stock market, Jon Bergdoll, interim director of data and research partnerships at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, which conducted the research for Giving USA’s report, told The Chronicle of Philanthropy that the market has become a larger predictor of total giving over time.

“That growing reliance means that the unpredictability of the markets is going to start bleeding into an unpredictability in giving as well,” the Associated Press reports.

Nonprofits are still struggling and the consequences are tangible

There is generally an inverse relationship between government grants and individual donations. As nonprofits receive funding from the government, they may deprioritize donation campaigns geared toward individual contributors.

On the other hand, if donors see a nonprofit struggling to stay afloat, they’re inclined to help make up the difference.

“When people genuinely care about a cause, they tend to give more when it is in trouble. It is really as simple as that,” Jen Shang, philanthropic psychologist and co-founder of the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, told Moneywise.

Some nonprofits, like the Natural Resource Defence Council, have seen some traction as a result of actions from the Trump administration.

“Donors large and small recognize that this administration is waging the worst assault ever on clean air, safe drinking water, wildlife and nature,” NRDC Chief Development Officer Mollie Marsh-Heine said in a statement to Moneywise. “We are grateful that, in response, they’ve stepped up their engagement, increasing their support for our work significantly since this administration took office. It’s needed now more than ever.”