Statistics: United States

Americans donated a record $306.39 billion to charity in 2007 (The Economic Times).

All subcategories of public charities saw increases in donations last year:

• Religion: $102.32 billion, up 1.8 percent after inflation
• Education: $43.32 billion, up 3.4 percent after inflation
• Human services: $29.64 billion, up 5.4 percent after inflation
• Health: $23.15 billion, up 2.4 percent after inflation
• Public society benefit: $22.65 billion, up 2.9 percent after inflation
• Arts, culture and humanities: $13.67 billion, up 4.8 percent after inflation
• International affairs: $13.22 billion, up 12.9 percent after inflation
• Environment and animals: $6.96 billion, up 7.7 percent after inflation
  

In most years, some two-thirds of Americans donate to charity.

The second-leading source of donations were foundation grants at $38.5 billion. Other sources were $23 billion from bequests and $15.7 billion from corporations, which was down by an inflation-adjusted 1 percent from 2006.

Charitable giving accounted for 2.1% of gross domestic product (Giving USA 2006)

There are approximately 1,010,400 charitable organizations in the US (National Philanthropic Trust, June 2007)

• Basic Facts about US Giving
• Basic Facts about International Giving by US Foundations
• 2007 Statistics about Charitable Giving
• Top 10 Foundations (by asset)
• Top 20 Foundations (by expenditure)
• Top 20 Foundations that award international grants
• Corporate Philanthropy
• Foundation Center International Grantmaking Statistics