In a year defined by policy shifts and economic uncertainty, private foundation giving held remarkably steady as shown by the data in our 2026 Report on Private Philanthropy. In this next installment of our multi-part series, we’re taking a deep dive into the giving trends, exploring the grantmaking activities of the 1,237 private, non-operating foundation clients our subject matter experts analyzed across 2024 and 2025.
The headline this year is consistency. Foundations made more grants and deployed more total dollars year-over-year, all while exceeding the annual payout requirement, as they typically do. That steadiness is notable given changes in public policy, shifting community needs and ongoing uncertainty across the nonprofit sector. Keep reading to see how these trends vary by foundation size and which charitable categories captured the most funding.
Grantmaking
Collectively the 1,237 private foundations in our study made 2,000 more grants and gave $149.5 million more in 2025 than 2024.
Given the strong market performance in 2024, many foundations experienced an uptick in assets which translates to an increased payout requirement in 2025. The approach for managing this increase varies by foundation; some make more grants, some make larger grants, some will do both, and others meet their higher payout requirement with carryovers from prior years.
Payout Requirement
Foundations are required to disburse an amount of charitable funding each year equal to roughly 5% of their net assets of the previous year, known as the “minimum distribution requirement” (MDR). It is often assumed that most private foundations will curtail their charitable activities to stay at or near the 5% payout requirement to sustain operations as long as possible.
The foundations we studied exceeded their 5% MDR in both 2024 and 2025, which is consistent with previous reports we’ve published using different samples of client foundations. Overall, in 2025, foundations distributed an average of 7.1% of their assets, the same as they did in 2024, helped in part by strong economic conditions during this timeframe. (See Changes in Asset Values on page 25.)
How Much Foundations Gave Relative to Their Assets
Over more than two decades of working with foundations of all sizes, we have consistently seen their average charitable distributions exceed the 5% minimum distribution requirement, and this year was no different. Historically, the smallest foundations have been the most generous relative to their asset size, and they led the way again in 2025, distributing 9.9% of their total assets, just as they did in 2024. Meanwhile, for the same year-over-year span, mid-size foundations distributed 6.8%, a slight drop of .3%, and larger foundations gave 6.1% of their assets, up slightly from 5.7%.
The National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) category capturing the most funding from foundations in 2025 was Education at 19% of all grant dollars, which was consistent with the prior year. Public/Societal Benefit was the second largest category at 16.5%, and Human Services rounded out the top three at 13.7%. Four categories experienced a year-over-year increase in funding: Public/Societal Benefit, Human Services, Health, and International/Foreign Affairs. Of all categories, Health experienced the greatest shift in funding, a year-over-year rise of 2.6%. All other NTEE categories saw just minor decreases in funding from 2024 to 2025.
Of note, the largest percentage of 2025 grant dollars from foundations, or 22.9%, went to Unknown or Unclassified organizations. As of August 2026, the National Center for Charitable Statistics estimates that approximately 25% of public charities have incomplete or inaccurate NTEE category assignments1 , which represents a growing blind spot in the philanthropic sector.
In terms of grant volume, Human Services attracted the largest number of individual grants at 7,785 surpassing the Education category by more than 2,000. So, while foundations gave more dollars to Education in 2025, they gave more grants—in smaller dollar amounts—to Human Services.
As seen in the analysis of grant dollars by charitable category, Unknown and Unclassified organizations attracted the most individual grants in both years and saw an increase of nearly 1,000 grants between 2024 and 2025, a dynamic that makes it difficult to get a complete picture of where charitable capital is being allocated in the U.S.
The map below shows the geographic location of grant recipients in 2024 and 2025. Although most of the grants from the foundations in our sample were made domestically, grant dollars were also directed to recipients in 48 other countries over the past two years. Of note, the average grant for non-U.S. locations is $62,970, which is more than twice the size of the average U.S. grant of $26,800.
As in previous years, foundation grantmaking activity in 2025 reached its highest point at the end of the calendar year. In both 2024 and 2025, about 40% of all grants were awarded in the fourth quarter “giving season”—most likely because these months encompass several holidays and occur closest to the end of the standard tax year.
Grants can be made as general operating support or for a specific purpose. General operating support is particularly treasured by nonprofits because it can be used as they wish, either to pay basic expenses that help keep the lights on, launch a new program, or address new or unexpected needs, such as a sudden call for emergency aid.
Foundations, however, typically favor targeted giving in the form of specific-purpose grants so their resources are devoted to programs that further their own charitable objectives.
All Foundations
In 2025, 40% of private foundations’ grants were for general operating use and 60% were for designated programs or initiatives, which is similar to 2024.
Funding for general operating support versus specific purposes tends to vary by foundation size, with larger foundations favoring targeted giving. Smaller foundations are most willing to provide general operating support; in 2025 they nearly gave an equal amount of each. By contrast, 58.4% of grants from mid-size foundations and 70% of grants from larger foundations were for specific purposes in 2025, which was fairly constant year-over-year and may be linked to bigger gifts where funders have explicit goals.
While gifts to public charities are the cornerstone of foundation giving, the features of a private foundation allow funders to deploy assets in a wide variety of ways that gives them an extraordinary and flexible toolkit to pursue their missions. Some of these tools include:
Questions About This Report Or Want to Learn More?
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