Despite a disastrous economic year, Americans are still giving. Nearly 40 percent said they’re likely or sure to contribute more to charity this year than they did in 2019, according to a new survey of 1,000 U.S. adults by online gift processor Classy. Just 9 percent say they expect to give less, mostly due to financial constraints, and 44 percent said they would contribute the same amount they did the previous year.
Nearly 60 percent of donors said the pandemic was the biggest influence on their giving this year. Nineteen percent cited the political climate, and 17 percent said racial-justice protests were the biggest influence on their giving.
Nearly 40 percent of respondents said they changed how they gave this year because charities needed their dollars more now than they did before the public-health emergency. Another 33 percent said they care more about the causes they support now than they did prior to the pandemic.
Despite these different motivations, survey respondents made more contributions to health charities this year than any other cause. That’s a change from 2019 and 2018, when disaster-relief nonprofits received the most support from survey respondents. The youngest donors were most likely to support health charities — 66 percent of Generation Z donors said they had given to a charity that addresses Covid-19. Just 28 percent of baby boomers said they had done so.
Thirty-six percent of respondents said changes to their personal finances would alter their giving this year. Not all of those financial changes were bad. For example, 21 percent of donors said they contributed some or all of their stimulus check to charity.
And while some donors are feeling a financial squeeze, others are expanding their charitable support. Thirty-one percent said they added new charities to the roster they supported before the pandemic. Among donors who gave to social-justice causes, 58 percent said they did so for the first time this year, including 75 percent of Generation X donors.
This expansion in giving didn’t necessarily come at a cost to other causes. Forty-three percent of donors who contributed to social-justice groups this year said they had already given to other causes or planned to do so. However, 32 percent said they would not give to other causes.
And while many donors have already made charitable and political contributions this year, nearly one-quarter said the pandemic had inspired them to give more to nonprofits. What’s more, 66 percent of donors who had made political donations this year said they also planned to step up their contributions to nonprofits.
That interest in giving may also be politically motivated. When they were surveyed in September, 46 percent of Republicans said they planned to donate to nonprofits that matched their political values if their party had a bad night on November 3. Just 37 percent of Democrats said they planned to do the same. Perhaps because election night was so mixed, conservative causes aren’t seeing a “Biden bump” to match the “Trump bump” that progressive causes benefited from in 2016.
With donors feeling this generous, fundraisers shouldn’t fret about asking them to give again, the authors say. That echoes advice from other fundraisers and experts who anticipate a robust year-end. With health causes top of mind, the report’s authors suggest charities would find the most fundraising success with messages that tie their mission to pandemic relief.
While 29 percent of donors said they prefer making gifts to charity in person, 30 percent said they had participated in or given to a virtual fundraising event since March. Generation X donors were the most likely to have participated in a virtual event, with 48 percent saying they had done so since the pandemic began.
Donors have mixed feelings about virtual events, even as they continue to attend them. Thirty-four percent of respondents said they liked virtual events for their safety, and 24 percent appreciated their accessibility. However, 22 percent said virtual events were less likely than in-person events to make them feel connected to a charity’s mission.
Among the other findings:
- Among donors who had contributed to political campaigns, candidates, and political-action committees, just 7 percent said they planned to give less to charity this year.
- Not only are essential workers seeing the public through the pandemic, they’re also more likely to increase their gifts to charity this year than nonessential workers — by a margin of 33 percent to 22 percent.
- Nearly 55 percent of respondents said they knew about GivingTuesday. Generation X donors were the most familiar with the day.
