NPR.

This is the indicator from planet money.

I'm Waylon Wong.

And I'm Stephen Besaha here with two facts.

The first is that Americans are some of the most generous givers in the world.

In fact, Americans give even more than Canadians and about seven times as much as some Europeans,

according to Philanthropy Roundtable.

The other fact is that the American government has become less generous, at least when it

comes to funding social safety net programs like food assistance.

These two facts do fit in with the American concept of less government, more private good.

And given all that, it seems reasonable to imagine American philanthropy stepping in where the U.S.

government is stepping out.

The big problem with that is that the math doesn't work.

On today's show, why charity can't fill the hole left by government cuts, and why some

philanthropists say doing that can be the wrong way to spend those dollars.

To check in on the state of U.S. charities, we called up Kyle Caldwell.

Kyle heads up a group that represents philanthropic giants in Michigan, like the Kresge

Foundation, along with smaller foundations.

Well, change in chaos is really the theme that we're having to sort of manage in philanthropy.

He's talking about all the change and chaos caused by the federal funding cuts last year under the

Trump administration.

And I think that creates for us a real challenge because philanthropy can change and chaos caused by the federal funding cuts last year under the Trump administration.

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