October 7, 2025 | Read Time: 8 minutes
What giving to the 100 organizations that raise the most money tells us about donation trends, donor behavior, and fundraising strategies
The 100 organizations identified by the Chronicle as America’s Favorite Charities raise more than $38 billion annually. What can their millions of contributions tell us about the donation trends, fundraising strategies, and macro forces — political, economic, and cultural — that influence giving?
For answers, we examined the growth or decline of giving to organizations based on the averages of their cash support over two three-year periods: 2018-20 and 2021-23, the latest year for which data is available for all organizations. It’s worth noting that the pandemic affected giving during these six years, and our analysis predates the volatility and uncertainty that has accompanied Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Here are seven takeaways.
Collectively, the groups that raised the most cash saw roughly average growth. All giving by Americans averaged over 2021-23 grew 23 percent from the previous three years, according to “Giving USA” figures. Only 46 of the 94 groups in our analysis with historical data topped that mark, and 18 actually saw giving decline.
Many older groups are feeling their age. America’s Favorite Charities are old — very old. Forty-two organizations on our list are at least 75 years old; 21 are more than 100. Average cash support to the centenarians was largely flat during the six years in our analysis.
Age has its benefits. These older groups are often household names that enjoy considerable trust and goodwill. Yet donors increasingly “are giving more and more to ideas and causes rather than out of institutional loyalty,” says Rick Happy, chair of CCS Fundraising, a consultancy that works with hundreds of organizations. Also, younger donors often believe that “the larger, older institutions may not be as dynamic.”
“The aura of something like the American Cancer Society only gets you so far,” says Kael Reicin, chief finance and strategy officer for the society (No. 16). “You have to deliver real value, real impact.”
Celebrities can fuel growth. Boldface names lead two of the 16 organizations on our list that were established in the 21st century and have climbed with incredible speed into the top 50. Giving to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (No. 34), created in 2000 by the Back to the Future actor, doubled as more venerable health groups saw little or no growth. (See below.) And the 15-year-old World Central Kitchen (No. 41) saw contributions climb more than 200 percent as its founder, chef José Andrés, and his crews turned up in disaster hotspots from Ukraine to Tornado Alley in the States.
Celebrity drives awareness and earned media, but Fox and Andrés are also strong leaders, says Tim Sarrantonio, chairman of AFP’s Fundraising Effectiveness Project and an executive with Neon One, a nonprofit technology company.
Andrés “does such an amazing job elevating the people that are impacted or doing the work. It’s beautiful,” Sarrantonio says. “That’s why those organizations grow very quickly — because they de-center themselves as quickly as possible.”
The effectiveness of fundraising events — always a hot topic — remains an open question after the pandemic. When Covid hit, the American Cancer Society was already edging away from its heavy reliance on its 40-year-old Relay for Life, a series of community walk events. It used the pandemic pause to recalibrate and began investing more in major-gift and corporate fundraising. This year, it will organize about 1,700 events — down from 3,100 in 2019. It’s also adding more galas and golf tournaments to its event lineup, which communities have asked for, Reicin says.
“You ride the waves of growth, but if you don’t change, you suffer the consequences,” he says. “Like any organization, we have to listen to the community.”
Ducks Unlimited (No. 82), meanwhile, is doubling down on events. Even as the organization pared payroll during the pandemic’s lean times, it retained core event program staff. “We catapulted out of Covid,” says David Schuessler, national director of event fundraising. “I felt like we were first to market in a lot of communities because we were ready to take advantage of the fact that we were still fully staffed.”
This year, it will organize 5,400 events, up from around 4,000 before the pandemic. Driving those higher numbers are online events — auctions and raffles for trips, decoys, art, and other items — that it introduced for the first time during the pandemic.
Previously, online fundraising “was a bad word inside of Ducks Unlimited because we felt that it might cannibalize some of our event business,” Schuessler says. “We learned that it doesn’t.”
Health groups are trying to find new footing. The 14 health organizations on our list saw giving climb just 8 percent, with contributions declining at six of the organizations. Many of these groups rely heavily on participatory events — walk- and bike-athons, for instance — that shuttered during the pandemic and were still recovering in 2023, the last year of our analysis.
Several say donations improved in 2024 and 2025 as Covid fears eased and participation grew. The American Heart Association (No. 18) saw its cash support climb 6 percent in 2024. Companies — always key to connecting the organization to grassroots supporters — are joining walks to build community among their remote or hybrid workers, says Suzie Upton, chief operating officer. “They use them as a way for people to come together.”
Two organizations rebranded. Earlier this year, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society took up the name Blood Cancer United (No. 25). JDRF, once known as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, rebooted in 2024 as Breakthrough T1D (No. 63) — a recognition that medicine has discovered that type 1 diabetes affects adults as well as children.
Breakthrough T1D also has invested heavily in big-gift programs. The pandemic “reminded us how important diversified fundraising is,” says chief global development officer Kathleen Seitz. In the past year, it has netted four pledges of $25 million or more, and its fiscal 2025 fundraising topped $270 million, a record for the organization.
It continues its walk events, which Seitz says are critical to “field engagement” — more than half of its 32 gifts of $1 million or more this year were made bydonors who came to the group through events. But event proceeds now make up 40 percent of its revenues, down from 60 percent before the pandemic.
Disaster giving has shifted the landscape. More than a quarter of the 100 charities in our analysis work in disaster or international relief — the largest share of any cause. .
Giving set records in the year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the two-year war in Gaza has added to that. Islamic Relief USA (No. 85) and several Israel-support organizations saw significant growth in our analysis; cash support for Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (No. 80) grew 58 percent.
“The sums of money that Jews are giving to Jewish causes has increased quite dramatically,” Jewish philanthropy historian Jack Wertheimer told eJewishPhilanthropy recently. “By my estimate, in the early 2020s, it was at least double what it was thought to be in 2014.”
The pandemic also created a global health emergency. “All the places we work in around the world were impacted by the pandemic,” says Gabriella Palmi, managing director of resource generation at Partners in Health (No. 57), the nearly 40-year-old group made famous by Tracy Kidder’s book Mountains Beyond Mountains about co-founder Paul Farmer.
Partners in Health doesn’t do emergency-response work and isn’t engaged in Ukraine or Gaza. But health threats have raised awareness about the organization’s focus on global health security and pandemic control, Palmi says. Emergencies organically bring the organization new donors — “We don’t invest in a lot of marketing,” she says — and underscore the need for systemic work that motivates the group’s hefty cadre of longtime supporters.
The environment heats up as an issue. When Julie Naranjro Upham started as a fundraiser at Conservation International (No. 77) in 2008, many donors didn’t even know what climate change was. Most Americans now see it as a crisis, says the organization’s vice president for individual giving.
Not coincidentally, six of the nine environmental groups on our list saw giving climb by roughly half or more. The highest fliers: Ducks Unlimited, Conservation International, and the Wildlife Conservation Society (No. 95), which each recorded 65 percent growth.
Conservation International positions itself as “radical” optimism, Upham says. “People want to feel that hope as they’re doing something at whatever level they can.”
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Image at top: Donations have grown quickly to World Central Kitchen (No. 41), the humanitarian organization founded by celebrity chef José Andrés in 2010.
