Women’s Online Donations to Progressive Groups Far Outstripped Men’s After Trump’s Election

Gifts from women powered increases in online giving to progressive nonprofits in the weeks after the 2016 presidential election, a new study of a select group of donors to prominent charities finds.

In the week before the 2016 election, women gave an average of $1,586 more to progressive groups than men. In the week after the 2016 election, women gave an average of $3,905 more than men.

Moreover, progressive nonprofits received an average of $184 more in internet giving from women than men in the week before the election. During the week after, those same nonprofits received $1,098 more, on average, from women than from men.

The findings come from a study by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute of people who gave through Charity Navigator, a site that provides information and ratings of nonprofits and also allows people to make gifts to any nonprofit. As a result, the institute’s researchers noted, it is only a small slice of donations and limited to online gifts.

Progressive beneficiaries of the increased giving were groups like Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The study was conducted in part to uncover whether changes in giving after the election affected all kinds of nonprofits equally, said Jacqueline Ackerman, assistant director for research and partnerships at the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. Instead, the study shows that the largest increases were more likely directed to progressive nonprofits.

Ackerman said the study suggests that women gave so much because they saw charitable giving to progressive nonprofits as an extension of their political engagement, supporting reproductive rights, climate action, and other causes associated with the left.

“Donors increasingly care about aligning their values wherever they spend or give money, from choosing to purchase sustainable products to making impact investments to giving to political candidates and campaigns they judge to be most in line with their values,” the report said.