National Philanthropic Trust, the country's largest independent sponsor of donor-advised funds, said on November 25, 2025 that grants recommended by its donors grew 20% in fiscal 2025 to exceed $6.6 billion, a record for the organization. The number of individual grants climbed 25% to more than 161,500, spread across nearly 48,700 charities in every state and 67 countries. The jump lands just weeks before new limits on the itemized charitable deduction, part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), take effect on January 1, 2026.
What changed
National Philanthropic Trust's fiscal year runs July 2024 through June 2025, so the record predates the final stretch of 2025 giving season, but the pattern lines up with what fundraisers have been describing since the law passed in July: affluent donors moving up gifts they might otherwise have spread across several years. Two-thirds of the trust's grants were unrestricted, general-purpose gifts, and the dollar value of that unrestricted giving rose 72%, a sign that donors funded charities broadly rather than earmarking gifts for specific projects. Grants to environmental and animal-welfare causes rose 41%, and health-related grants rose 39%, faster than the overall total, according to the National Philanthropic Trust report. Separately, the DAF Research Collaborative's industry-wide tally found that grants from all U.S. donor-advised fund sponsors reached $64.6 billion in fiscal 2024, up nearly 18% from the prior year, alongside a jump in new contributions into DAF accounts — evidence the acceleration in giving is not limited to one sponsor.
Who is affected
The trend matters most for itemizing households in or near the top tax bracket who use a donor-advised fund to bunch several years of planned giving into a single contribution, then grant the money out to charities over time. Starting in 2026, itemized charitable gifts face a new 0.5%-of-adjusted-gross-income floor, and for donors in the top bracket the tax value of each dollar given is effectively capped at roughly 35 cents rather than the current 37. Both changes make a dollar of charitable giving less valuable, in after-tax terms, from January 1 onward. Because the deduction for a gift into a donor-advised fund is claimed the year the money goes into the fund — not the year it is granted to a charity — households can lock in this year's more generous treatment on a large contribution now, then decide over the following years which charities receive the money.
The after-tax math
Example: a married couple with $1 million of adjusted gross income, in the top federal bracket, plans to give $80,000 to charity over the next two years. If they contribute the full $80,000 to a donor-advised fund in December 2025, the gift is not reduced by the new floor and its value is not capped, so it is deductible in full against income taxed at 37%, producing roughly $29,600 of federal tax savings. If they instead wait and give $40,000 in each of 2026 and 2027, the 0.5%-of-AGI floor removes the deductibility of the first $5,000 of each year's gift, and the remaining deduction is worth about 35 cents on the dollar rather than 37. The two years of giving would produce roughly $24,500 of combined tax savings on the same $80,000 — a gap of about $5,100 that comes entirely from timing, not from giving any less.
Moves to discuss with your advisor
- Households that expect to keep giving at a similar level for several years may want to review whether funding a donor-advised fund before December 31, 2025 captures deductions at this year's uncapped, floor-free rates.
- Contributing appreciated stock or fund shares held more than a year, rather than cash, can avoid capital gains tax on the appreciation in addition to the charitable deduction, subject to the usual limits on gifts of property.
- Because a gift into a donor-advised fund is irrevocable once made, the size of any 2025 contribution is worth setting against realistic multi-year giving plans, not simply this year's tax bill.
- A CPA can model how the new floor and cap interact with a household's other itemized deductions, since the after-tax benefit varies with income, state taxes and the mix of gifts.
What to watch
Other large DAF sponsors, including Fidelity Charitable and Schwab Charitable, typically publish their own annual reports in the coming months; if their contribution and grant totals for the second half of 2025 show a similar acceleration, it would confirm that the new law — not one sponsor's fundraising — is driving the surge. The IRS has not yet issued detailed guidance on how the 0.5% floor will be calculated in edge cases, such as households whose income fluctuates sharply from gains or bonuses, which is one reason some advisors are urging clients to finish 2025 giving decisions before year-end rather than wait for further clarification.
Sources
- First reported National Philanthropic Trust Donor-Recommended Grants to Charities Grow 20% in FY 2025 to Exceed $6.6 Billion — National Philanthropic Trust (PR Newswire)
- Annual DAF Report 2025 — DAF Research Collaborative
- OBBBA Solidifies High Estate Tax Exemptions and Charitable Giving Changes — Goodwin
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