Most US adults aren’t making year-end charitable contributions, new AP-NORC poll finds

Most Americans Not Making Year-End Charitable Giving Plans, AP-NORC Poll Finds

Most Americans aren’t making end-of-year charitable giving plans, according to a new AP-NORC poll, despite the flurry of fundraising appeals from nonprofits that traditionally rely on December donation surges to meet annual budget goals.

The survey, conducted in early December by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, reveals that about half of U.S. adults have already made their charitable contributions for 2025. Only 18% report they’ve donated and plan to give again before the year ends, while a mere 6% say they haven’t given yet but will do so by December’s end. The remaining 30% haven’t donated and don’t plan to make any charitable gifts.

This giving pattern emerges against a backdrop of competing financial pressures. American donors faced multiple challenges this year, including President Donald Trump’s cuts to social services grants, severe foreign aid rollbacks, and a November freeze on SNAP benefits. Natural disasters, such as Los Angeles’ historically destructive wildfires, created additional urgent causes in need of support.

While Trump’s tax legislation introduced a new charitable deduction of up to $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for married couples, providing an incentive to give, economic realities painted a different picture. Weaker income gains coupled with steep price inflation meant many lower-income households had less disposable income for charitable giving. This aligns with other research showing a multi-year decline in individual giving rates across America.

Despite these challenges, December remains a critical period for nonprofits. Dianne Chipps Bailey, managing director of Bank of America’s Philanthropic Solutions division, cited National Philanthropic Trust estimates that nearly one-third of annual giving occurs in the final month of the year.

“December 31 provides a target to make sure that they’ve given what they intended to give before the year is over,” Bailey explained.

GivingTuesday, the now-established day of generosity following Thanksgiving, saw Americans donate an estimated $4 billion to nonprofits this year. However, the poll found that just one in ten Americans made a GivingTuesday gift, compared to nearly half who made Black Friday purchases.

“Black Friday gets the lion’s share of things,” said Oakley Graham, a 32-year-old Missouri resident. “And then you’ve got GivingTuesday a couple days later. Most people have probably spent all their spending money at that point.”

Graham’s experience reflects broader economic pressures facing many Americans. His family has “definitely tightened the financial belt” in recent years while managing student loan debt, growing children’s needs, and trying to save. Though he still helps neighbors and makes Salvation Army clothing donations, finding extra funds for charitable giving proves difficult.

The survey revealed that “checkout charity” – donations requested during retail transactions – proved more popular, with about 40% of U.S. adults reporting they’ve donated this way. Older adults, particularly those over 60, are more likely than the general population to participate in these point-of-sale donations.

Graham occasionally rounds up at Bass Pro Shops for conservation causes. “With the finances, I don’t do a lot of buying these days. But a couple cents here or there is like — I can do that,” he said. “It doesn’t sound like much. But I know if everybody did it would make a difference.”

Among the quarter of Americans who plan to donate in the final weeks of the year is Chuck Dietrick, a 69-year-old architect who employs what he calls a “shotgun approach” to year-end giving. He and his wife support about eight organizations annually in addition to their monthly donations to Valley Hope, an addiction services provider that helped their son.

Dietrick estimates their household donated between $501 and $2,500 this year, primarily to organizations that have personally impacted their lives or those of friends and family. “I would rather give a smaller amount of money to a variety of institutions that I care about rather than giving a big chunk of money to one,” he explained.

The poll suggests that while private donors mobilized millions to fill funding gaps and hunger relief groups saw donation spikes following federal cuts, many Americans didn’t adjust their giving in response to these pressures. Most 2025 donors reported that federal funding reductions and the government shutdown had minimal impact on their donation amounts, though about 30% said these events influenced which charities they supported.

Jeannine Disviscour, a 63-year-old Baltimore teacher who donated between $501 and $2,500 this year, was among those who increased giving due to federal cuts. Her donations included support for National Public Radio after Congress eliminated $1.1 billion in public broadcasting funding this summer.

“I did donate that week because I was feeling the need to support organizations that I felt might not continue to get the support they needed to be successful,” Disviscour said.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,146 adults was conducted December 4-8 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4 percentage points.