Note: This guest post is from Nora Ellertsen of The Funding Seed. Thanks, Nora!

Every summer, Giving USA – a comprehensive, annual report on charitable giving in the United States – lands in the inboxes of fundraisers everywhere.

I review the report and reference it frequently in workshops and coaching sessions. Although imperfect, to my knowledge it’s the most comprehensive look at where money comes from and goes within the nonprofit sector.

Giving USA offers a free infographic summarizing the data. In addition, a zillion webinars and think-pieces break down the findings, with the purpose of helping nonprofits make better research-informed fundraising decisions.

More dollars, fewer donors

The latest report, which analyzes charitable giving in 2025, dropped in June. The two biggest takeaways:

1. The number of dollars is up.
2. The number of donors is down.

People with the ability to give gave more, but fewer people felt they had the ability to give. In other words, donations to nonprofits look a lot like the broader social structure we’re surviving: the gap between the ultra-wealthy and everyone else is growing, so more people are becoming selective about how they use their limited resources.

I work with many small, systemically under-resourced nonprofits – grassroots groups that do so much with so little money – which are disproportionately affected by this shift in giving. Why? Because they have limited access to the people and institutions with significant wealth.

Invisible generosity

The GivingUSA data (and most fundraising research) tends to ignore the bigger picture of how people are working to make a better world.

And that’s the whole point, right?  To make the world better tomorrow than it is today?

So let’s talk about that bigger picture.

Giving beyond nonprofits

People give tons of money outside formal nonprofit structures. Think of crowdsourced donations to help with a medical bill, or family members and church congregants who pool their funds to pay a student’s college tuition.

Consider the informal but powerful mutual aid that supports people with no strings attached. After Hurricane Ida hit my home city of New Orleans in 2021, I donated to local nonprofits that responded to community needs. I also Venmo-ed two friends. One was buying groceries to cook daily meals for a dozen people. Another ran their generator for neighbors to charge electronics and keep cool while the power was out.

The donations I made to formal organizations are counted in Giving USA. The ones I sent to neighbors do not.

(Editor’s note: Giving USA also ignores the money sent by US-based workers to relatives and friends in other countries. These remittances are another form of mutual aid.)

More than money

Let’s think about all the ways people show up for nonprofits, their communities, and the world having nothing to do with cash donations. For example, someone who cares about food insecurity volunteers at a local food bank. An attorney takes a pro bono immigration case. A parent covers a shift at the nonprofit child care center.

However, just like money, people also donate their time and attention outside formal organizational structures. Residents of Minneapolis who put their bodies on the line to keep their neighbors safe. Locals who voice their opposition to AI data centers. Activists who knock on doors and remind people to vote. Neighbors who cook casseroles for other neighbors.

Maybe the bad news isn’t that bad?

Returning to Giving USA: All this volunteerism and mutual aid is a gift of hope. I’m not that dismayed by declining donor numbers because they don’t reflect all the ways people take action with their dollars, time, talents, solidarity, and basic human decency. Let’s not tunnel-vision ourselves by focusing on one corner of a much bigger picture.

As a fundraiser, you encourage people to donate to your own organization, which is worth celebrating. However, we can also celebrate when someone:

• Can’t give money but volunteers.
• Can’t volunteer but refers a friend.
• Doesn’t give to your group but supports an allied organization.
• Learns about the root causes of the problems you’re addressing.

Heresy … or maybe not

Coming from a career fundraising professional, this post might read like heresy, given your ever-present need to generate money. When you’re busy working miracles and making sacrifices to cover payroll and meet community needs, it’s not so easy to wax philosophical – as I’m doing here – about the value of community engagement.

For me, the bottom line is this: We’re not here to create institutions that exist in lonely silos, but rather to achieve a more beautiful, just, equitable world. That only happens when we understand the fundraising data for what it is: a small piece of a much larger whole.

Do you have thoughts on this piece and how it relates to your fundraising story? Please drop me a line! I’d love to hear from you.

P.S. If you’re looking for a deeper dive into the history of how this kind of big-picture solidarity has helped build tools to survive and thrive, especially in Black, immigrant, and LBTQ+ communities, this piece from NonProfit Quarterly is a strongly recommended read!