Charitable Giving for Humanities Activities
- ACH organizations received $25.13 billion from corporations, foundations, and individuals in 2024—the largest amount ever recorded (in inflation-adjusted data extending back to 1984; Indicator IV-15). This accounted for 4.2% of all charitable giving that year.
- Giving to ACH organizations increased 277% from 1984 to 2000 (rising from $5.1 billion to $19.24 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars) and then, after a two-year decline, experienced another surge up to $22.57 billion in 2007. With the recession the following year, however, charitable giving to these organizations dropped sharply, falling 20.6% (to $17.91 billion). ACH organizations were thus particularly hard hit, as overall giving decreased by only 7.2%. During the recession and for several years following it, giving to ACH organizations remained well below the 2007 high point.
- ACH giving hovered between $23 and $25 billion in almost every year from 2015 to 2023, before rising above $25 billion for the first time in 2024.
- Over the 1984–2024 period, giving to ACH organizations increased 393%, outpacing growth in charitable giving overall (186%).
- As a share of all charitable giving, donations to ACH organizations increased substantially from 1984 to 2007 (from 2.5% of all giving to 4.8%, the largest share on record). The share remained above 4% until 2021, when it shrank to 3.8%, the smallest percentage recorded since 1993. The share then increased to above 4% in 2022 and remained there in the following two years.
Source: Indiana University, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Giving USA 2025: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2024—Data Tables (Giving USA Foundation, 2025), pp. 6–7. Inflation adjustment performed by Giving USA using the Consumer Price Index. Data presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (humanitiesindicators.org).
Little information is available on charitable giving to the humanities. The Giving USA Foundation, a research organization that publishes information on trends in charitable giving, documents charitable support for an array of sectors, including “arts, culture, and humanities organizations.” Unfortunately, this category encompasses a range of activities (such as the performing arts) that are not within the scope of the humanities as conceptualized for the purposes of the Humanities Indicators. These data also exclude other key humanities activities (such as humanities education, which is tallied in an undifferentiated “education” category). Nonetheless, data from Giving USA provide the closest available approximation of the extent of charitable giving for humanities-related projects.
