Vanguard Charitable donors embrace their connections to causes and communities, driving another year of record granting

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Aug 27, 2024, 09:03 ET

Donors granted more than $3 billion in fiscal year 2024, a 45% increase from the year prior

MALVERN, Pa., Aug. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Vanguard Charitable, a leading nonprofit and trusted sponsor of donor-advised funds (DAFs), announced today its donors granted more than $3 billion in fiscal year 2024 (July 2023-June 2024), a 45% increase over the previous year. That's the equivalent of serving 374 million meals—more than one meal for every person in the United States.¹ This record granting included over 222,000 grants to nearly 60,000 nonprofits representing a diverse array of cause areas including human services, religion, education, health, environment and wildlife, and arts and culture. Since Vanguard Charitable's inception over 25 years ago, donors have granted more than $19 billion to nonprofits.

"Among many generous giving trends, we're seeing a theme of donors embracing personal community connections to ramp up their support for nonprofits, whether within their favorite existing causes or a brand new one, and in addition to their expected and planned giving," said Rebecca Moffett, president of Vanguard Charitable.

"Our research shows that while this type of giving may be unexpected or responsive, it is in addition to a broader giving strategy," Moffett said. "In fact, expected giving is seeing double digit growth of 17%, while donors also increase their responsive granting. The ability to leverage the power and flexibility of a DAF enables those already committed charitable dollars to deploy quickly—whenever a donor is inspired to give. We're excited to help donors refine their philanthropic strategies for continued impact in fiscal 2025."

Embracing connections
Vanguard Charitable donors are often driven to give based on an experience or unexpected circumstance. This contributes to a high rate of unexpected giving—a rate that is increasing by 24% per year at Vanguard Charitable over the past decade—which ultimately increases overall giving thanks to the flexibility and value of a donor-advised fund. In many cases, what starts as a one-off grant evolves into consistent, year-over-year giving.

"I started my philanthropic journey with my Vanguard Charitable donor-advised fund many years ago by making a recurring grant to Camp Kesem, a free summer camp for children whose parents have cancer or died of cancer – something my family unfortunately experienced," said David Pasta, a Vanguard Charitable donor of more than 10 years. "The compounding growth of my DAF then enabled me to support more charities through connection-based giving, like my local food bank and, more personally as a part-time resident, the Maui community after the wildfires in summer 2023. I am grateful for my DAF, as it enabled me to give directly to those impacted without detracting from my ongoing giving to Camp Kesem," Mr. Pasta stated.

Granting made easier and faster
In fiscal year 2024, the top three causes supported were human services, religion, and education—the same top causes as in 2023. In fiscal year 2024, the top five charities (by grant units) were:

Doctor's Without Borders
World Central Kitchen
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ)

In fiscal year 2024, Vanguard Charitable reached another significant milestone – $1 billion in grants issued via Grant Payments with PayPal, an electronic delivery solution for more than 13,000 registered charities. Launched in late 2023 with PayPal, Grant Payments improves and expedites the transfer of funds from grantmakers to charities. The solution eliminates the need of paper checks and simplifies the delivery of grants. Getting grants to charities quickly is critically important when supporting time-sensitive disaster relief efforts and when physical mailboxes may be inaccessible.

Ongoing philanthropic partnership, support, and guidance
Vanguard Charitable enables effective charitable giving with thoughtfully curated offers and resources for donors. This includes:

Enabling a culture of generous philanthropy: The 2024 edition of Why Giving Matters: Responsive giving at donor-advised funds spurs greater total giving demonstrates that Vanguard Charitable donors who use their DAF for unexpected grants (to events like natural disasters and humanitarian crises) gave 39% more than those who only granted based on their expected (or planned) giving. Over the last 10 years, Vanguard Charitable donors' expected giving has grown 17% per year, whereas unexpected giving has grown 24% per year.
How America gives to charity: Based on donor insights through calendar year 2023, Vanguard Charitable created "a mosaic of generosity," displaying the top charity in each state by cause. The map reveals a patchwork quilt of giving. It speaks to the diversity and vibrancy of the nonprofit sector in the United States—and Vanguard Charitable donors' ability to touch every corner of it.
Growing charitable dollars: For over 25 years, Vanguard Charitable donors benefit from their access to the best-in-class charitable investment options and the DAF industry's lowest all-in fees—a combination that increases the dollars available for grantmaking and enables our donors to maximize the impact of their overall giving.

For more information about Vanguard Charitable or giving through donor-advised funds, please visit www.vanguardcharitable.org.

About Vanguard Charitable
Vanguard Charitable is a leading U.S. nonprofit organization that fulfills its mission to increase philanthropic giving by administering a donor-advised fund—a tax-effective way to consolidate, accrue, and grant assets to charity. Since it was founded by Vanguard² in 1997 as an independent 501(c)(3) organization, Vanguard Charitable has granted more than $19 billion to charity. More information is available at www.vanguardcharitable.org.

Footnotes:
¹ Meals on Wheels data, https://mealswheelslove.org/meals-on-wheels/

² Vanguard provides certain investment management and administrative services to Vanguard Charitable pursuant to a service agreement, Vanguard Charitable is not a program or activity of Vanguard. A majority of Vanguard Charitable' s trustees are independent of Vanguard.

SOURCE Vanguard Charitable