For nearly a decade the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy has been publishing an annual report titled “11 Trends in Philanthropy.” The report on trends in 2025 was published in March. The list is not intended to be exhaustive, and it is wide in range, including grantmaking strategies, nonprofit management and demographic change.
We are not reporting on policy-related trends, which are under discussion at this time and may impact the grantmaking decisions of foundations and individual donors. This installment discusses trends in the causes attracting donors’ attention. Note: “Trends in Philanthropy 2025, Part 1” discussed trends in how donors give, and can be found here.
Part Two: Causes Attracting Donors’ Attention
America’s Population is Rapidly Aging. Can Philanthropy Keep Up?
The Johnson Center reports:
“Americans today are living longer and having fewer babies, shifting the median age from 30 years old in 1980 to 38.9 years old in 2022 — the oldest it has ever been (Population Reference Bureau, 2024). Across the country, the number of adults ages 65 and older is projected to increase from 17% to 23% of the total population within the next three decades. What’s more, a major turning point is coming: by 2034, the number of adults 65 and older (77 million) is projected to surpass the number of children under 18 (76.5 million) for the first time in U.S. history (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018).”
The good news is the number of grantmakers funding nonprofit service providers to this older population increased by 225% from 2012 to 2022. Much of this increase was prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. But this dramatic demographic change also poses many challenges:
- A decline in older adult volunteering since 2020, and its negative impact on nonprofits as well as on the quality of life of seniors.
- A significant gap in wealth between high-net-worth seniors who will be contributing to a historic transfer of financial assets and those who cannot afford to retire.
- The increasing cost of Social Security and Medicare and its impact on tax rates and the national debt.
- The persistent need for senior services in rural areas where private philanthropy is much more limited.
Increasing Efforts to Address the Health Professional Shortage
Regarding the dire need for health care workers across the country, the Johnson Center reported on large private gifts to universities to support careers in health care over the past seven years:
- In 2018, Elaine and Kenneth Langone donated $100 million to the New York University School of Medicine to provide scholarships to medical students. In 2023, they donated an additional $200 million to cover the tuition of future medical students.
- In 2022, the University of Pennsylvania’s nurse practitioner program received a $125 million gift from Leonard Lauder to prepare nurses to “provide primary care to individuals and families in underserved communities across the U.S.”
- In 2024, Dr. Ruth Gottesman made a $1 billion gift to The Albert Einstein College of Medicine to cover the cost of tuition for all students moving forward.
- Also in 2024, Bloomberg Philanthropies gifted $1 billion to Johns Hopkins University and contributed to all four historically Black medical schools: Howard University College of Medicine, Merry Medical College, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Morehouse School of Medicine. Bloomberg also committed funds to the forthcoming Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine, which will become the fifth medical school located at a historically Black college or university.
Additional support to reduce the health professional shortage has come from corporations, chambers of commerce, health care worker unions and federal and state grants. Questions remain, however, about how and where additional professionals will be deployed as hospitals and health care systems continue to consolidate.
Evolution and Challenges of Social Justice Philanthropy in a Polarized Era
“Philanthropic interest in social justice surged following the brutal and unjustified murder of George Floyd by Officer Derek Chauvin in 2020,” the Johnson Center notes. “This tragedy and the coronavirus pandemic catalyzed an increase in philanthropic support for racial equity, with commitments reaching $16.5 billion in 2020 by some estimates. However, the momentum gained in 2020 has slowed significantly, with funding levels dropping to just under $8 billion in 2021.”
Other philanthropy observers have commented on this trend. Phil Buchanan, CEO of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, noted in April 2024, “I hear more talk about the state of philanthropy’s commitment to racial equity than perhaps any other issue when I am meeting with philanthropic leaders and staff, as well as with nonprofit leaders. While there is little disagreement that many grantmakers and individual donors alike prioritized racial equity in the months following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police, there is much less clarity on where things stand today.”
Several factors have contributed to a drop in funding for racial equity. For some foundations, such funding was an off-mission, immediate reaction to the turmoil of 2020, and was discontinued as part of a return to normalcy. The Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling striking down affirmative action in higher education admissions also discouraged donors from making race-specific grants, especially when state attorneys general began interpreting that decision to apply to hiring protocols, scholarships and special programs.
As additional lawsuits challenging race-conscious programming continued to be filed across the country, President Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14151, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs” almost immediately after his inauguration. In the wake of that EO and threats of losing federal funding, public and private institutions of higher education have begun to dismantle their DEI programs and purge all references to diversity from their websites and other public communication. DEI and the concept of racial equity remain controversial issues, nonetheless, and the philanthropic sector remains divided on the use of race-based or race-focused grantmaking.
The Movement to Fund Democracy is Learning Important Lessons
Another trend deemed noteworthy by the Johnson Center is philanthropy’s considerable investment “in making our democracy work.” This includes funding promoting “voting rights and access, free and fair elections, an informed citizenry and civil public discourse.” Philanthropy’s interest in U.S. grantmaking to democracy-related 501(c)(3) nonprofits began increasing during the 2016 presidential election cycle. Such funding has expanded in every national election since, and while we may not know much about its impact, it is growing more coordinated.
The “democracy space” is broad and is defined in many different ways. The Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania maintains, “While its most visible practice is the free and fair election of leaders, democracy comprises a broad array of institutions that vest power in citizens, including a free press, rule of law, individual rights and others.” The Democracy Fund adds to the above list, “Ensuring an effective census and redistricting process, promoting racial and social justice, preventing political violence and anti-hate efforts and tracking and combating misinformation and disinformation.”
Others interested in democracy philanthropy focus on civics education (as opposed to “civic activism”), which has long been declining at all levels of American education. Recognizing that void, Philanthropy Roundtable recently published a Civics Playbook to connect foundations and individual donors with high-impact nonprofits working to provide excellent civics education that promotes and preserves good citizenship.
Democracy funding’s greatest threat is the extreme political polarization the country currently faces, which can easily render such funding useless if it focuses on obtaining a partisan outcome rather than preserving a neutral process. Building social cohesion around maintaining the processes that conserve our constitutional republic would be democracy funding’s greatest success.
The Nonprofit Workforce is in Crisis
Although nonprofit employment grew 18.6% between 2007 and 2017, a 2023 survey conducted by the National Council of Nonprofits revealed nearly 75% of nonprofit organizations reporting persistent vacancies in 2023. Health concerns, social disruption and school shutdowns all contributed to the shrinkage. Additionally, nonprofit leaders have reported increased concern about staff burnout.
“Looking to 2025, the forecast reflects an ongoing interplay of economic constraints and talent shortages,” the Johnson Center concludes.
Low wages contribute to malaise, leaving many nonprofits dealing with the need to raise funds to support their employees on top of obligations to those they have traditionally served. This is not a pitch nonprofits have typically made to private donors, and new restraints on federal support pose an additional challenge. There are, however, several donors who do include nonprofit workforce well-being in their capacity building philanthropy, and they may provide models for other donors to follow.
One example is the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s support for human resource planning, while the Johnson Center notes, “The Walter & Elise Haas Fund’s multi-year unrestricted funding provides organizations the flexibility to allocate resources toward staff care.”
Now, in the third quarter of the year, we are watching to see how changes in federal policy affect these trends, and how philanthropic donors respond to changing circumstances.
