The charitable giving landscape has witnessed dramatic shifts over the past few years. One of the preeminent forces for change was the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic and its aftermath have uprooted everyday norms and altered nearly every aspect of our lives, including philanthropic motivations and behaviors. During the pandemic, charitable giving crossed the half-trillion-dollar mark, reaching nearly $553 billion in 20211 (Giving USA, 2024; Pruitt, 2020).
Periods of population health and economic crises have effects on giving behaviors, even among those who frequently give. The COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity to examine how American households responded to a significant global crisis. Thus far, few studies have investigated how American households adapted during the pandemic time period, making this topic particularly novel and important. Our research strives to address this gap by expanding knowledge of how the pandemic disrupted and reshaped giving behavior—both giving rates and amounts given—of American households. Additionally, we explore how socio-demographic characteristics, such as age and education, influenced giving patterns during this time of widespread upheaval.
To gain deeper insights into these giving trends, we analyzed the philanthropic landscape in the periods immediately before the pandemic and during it, with a specific focus on giving rates and amounts. We utilize longitudinal data from the Philanthropy Panel Study (PPS), a generosity module within the University of Michigan’s Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The dataset, spanning 2010-2020, allows us to characterize giving changes in the first year (2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
Prior to the pandemic, in 2018, the share of American households participating in charitable giving dropped below 50 percent for the first time since the PPS began tracking, decreasing from 66.2 percent in 2000 to 49.6 percent (Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, 2021a). The decline in the giving participation rate occurred across nearly all socio-demographic groups, including race, age, income, and education level. The changes in the giving landscape prior to the pandemic were attributed to shifts in income, wealth, and homeownership, as well as factors such as interpersonal trust, and religious participation, which have been shown to influence giving behavior (Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, 2021a).
Following the onset of the pandemic in 2020, overall giving rates further declined, with only 46.9 percent of American households participating in charitable giving. Our analysis indicates that this reduced giving rate was lower than what might have been expected in the absence of the disruptive impact of the pandemic. In other words, the pandemic likely accelerated the existing downward trajectory in charitable giving rates. However, it is also important to recognize that the data reveal a “dollars up, donors down” scenario, where these declining giving rates coincided with modest rises in overall amounts donated by those who were still able to give in 2020. Before the pandemic, average giving amounts were largely stable with some modest growth among donor households.
The data also revealed compelling insights into secular giving and giving to religious congregations. During the pandemic, the giving rates of secular charitable giving experienced a sharper decline than giving rates to religious congregations, dropping by 16.5 percentage points from pre-pandemic levels, compared to a more modest 7 percentage point decline in religious giving rates over the same period. This finding is particularly important because it suggests a greater resilience of religious giving during a public health crisis.
The impact of the pandemic varied considerably across the fifty U.S. states, with declines in giving rates ranging from 3 to 73 percentage points. Our analysis suggests that the giving rate is weakly associated with adverse community-level COVID-19 morbidity/mortality and pandemic-induced economic loss. Otherwise, pandemic giving rate declines occurred across nearly all socio-demographic groups, including race, age, income, education level, and individual-level experiences of pandemic morbidity and job loss.
In addition to quantifying the overall giving rate and average giving amount changes among those who gave, the analysis strives to disentangle which pandemic factors, beyond traditional determinants of giving, may have been key drivers of changes in giving behavior. To achieve this, we integrate the PPS data with other comprehensive public and proprietary datasets. These additional sources provide information on broader pandemic morbidity and mortality, pandemic shutdowns, and pandemic-induced job loss in the respondent’s community. Our framework utilizes linear regression-based prediction modeling. This approach sheds light on whether and how pandemic factors—such as social distancing mandates, unprecedented economic loss, and COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality—may have impacted giving behaviors beyond factors traditionally associated with giving, including age, gender of household head, income, race/ethnicity, and religiosity.
Read and download the report: The giving environment: Giving during times of uncertainty
