The year in charitable giving

Marketplace

American Public Media

News, Business

4.6 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2026

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The winter holiday season is a key time for nonprofit fundraising — an estimated 30% of annual giving happens in December. But in 2025, highly publicized federal cuts resulted in an individual giving boost throughout the year. In this episode, some nonprofits worry demand will soon outgrow those private donations. Plus: Latino immigrants say deportation fears are reminiscent of the Covid-19 lockdown, communities fight to buy back private utilities, and “This Is Uncomfortable” host Reema Khrais gives tips for sticking to financial New Year’s resolutions.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	A look back on the year in giving and the biggest economic stories of the year.
0:07.3	Plus, your money resolutions for the year ahead.
0:10.5	From American Public Media, this is Marketplace.
0:26.4	In Washington, D.C., I'm Kimberly Adams in for Kai Rizdal.
0:28.6	It's Thursday, the 1st of January.
0:30.8	Happy New Year and good to have you along.
0:34.4	Yesterday wrapped up a big month for the nonprofit world.
0:37.4	A third of all annual giving happens in December. And it was especially important
0:39.3	last year for many nonprofits that lost federal funding due to Trump administration cuts.
0:45.5	It's still too early for a complete picture of just how much private donations may have helped
0:50.6	fill that gap. But here's one metric. On Giving Tuesday, one of the biggest
0:55.5	fundraising days of the year, more than 38 million people gave a record $4 billion to charities.
1:03.6	Marketplaces Samantha Fields has more about the year in fundraising. At the beginning of 2025,
1:09.4	it felt like everyone was in wait and sea mode, at least to
1:12.4	Erica Campbell at Second Harvest Heartland Food Bank in Minnesota. There was a lot of change, a lot of
1:17.5	economic uncertainty, and we could really feel that in terms of our fundraising. Campbell runs fundraising
1:23.7	for Second Harvest Heartland as its chief development officer. She says donations in
1:28.2	2025 stayed slow for a while, but then came October and the government shutdown, which included
1:34.1	a pause in food assistance benefits or SNAP. The conversations that we were having locally and
1:39.6	nationally around SNAP were just incredible. And I think it opened the eyes of a lot of people.
1:46.0	Just since the shutdown, Campbell says 7,000 people have donated to Second Harvest Heartland.
1:51.4	That's more than all of last year. Big events and stories in the news like the shutdown or
	...

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