The $617 Billion Wake-Up Call: Philanthropy Needs a Trust Strategy
American giving passed $600 billion for the first time, and the growth came from planned gifts. Structure, not spontaneity, is driving philanthropy.
Giving USA reported that charitable giving in the United States reached $617 billion in 2025, up about 3 percent and above $600 billion for the first time.1 The headline number is impressive. The more important planning lesson is where the growth came from.
The Paul Allen effect
Bequests grew 16.6 percent to about $62 billion. Foundation giving reached about $117 billion. Individual giving's share of the total slipped to roughly 64 percent. Education and public-society benefit organizations led the growth. And one estate, the $3.1 billion bequest of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, was large enough to move the national totals on its own.
Call it the Paul Allen effect: major philanthropy is increasingly driven by intentional estate, trust, and foundation planning rather than by last-minute generosity. The donors who shape the numbers decided years in advance what they would give, through what vehicle, and on what timetable.
What that means for a family
For most families, the question is no longer simply how much to give. The better question is what structure lets the giving, the family, and the legacy work together. The tools are well established, and each solves a different problem:
- Charitable lead annuity trusts (CLATs) suit families who already give every year and want to pair that giving with a transfer of wealth to children or grandchildren at a reduced gift tax cost. The charity receives an annuity for a term of years, and whatever remains passes to the family.
- Charitable remainder unitrusts (CRUTs) suit owners of low-basis stock, real estate, or a business who need diversification, an income stream, and a charitable remainder. The trust sells the asset without an immediate capital gains tax, pays the family a percentage of the trust each year, and leaves the balance to charity.
- Irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs) provide liquidity so that an estate can satisfy both the charitable plan and the family's needs without a forced sale.
- South Dakota domestic asset protection trusts and dynasty trusts protect and govern the wealth that stays in the family, across generations, under a trust law built for that purpose.
- Community property trusts help married couples in separate-property states obtain a full basis adjustment at the first death, which preserves flexibility to give appreciated assets later at a lower tax cost.
The role of the trustee
A corporate trustee can serve as the South Dakota trustee or administrator for these structures, coordinate the design and drafting with the family's attorney, and work alongside the family's investment advisor so that the advisor stays at the center of the relationship. That coordination is the difference between a charitable intent and a charitable plan.
Start with the question
Philanthropy at scale is now planned philanthropy. If your family gives, or wants to, the place to begin is not with the check. It is with a conversation about what structure lets your giving, your family, and your legacy all work together.
Notes
- Giving USA Foundation, "Giving USA 2026: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2025" (June 2026), https://givingusa.org/; see also Jon Bergdoll's analysis of the data in The Conversation (June 2026). ↩
Terry L. (T. L.) Turnipseed, J.D., LL.M., CTFA, is a tax, trust and estate attorney in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Head of Estate and Tax Planning at Alta Trust Company. He is a former tenured professor of law at Syracuse University. Reach him at tl@turnipseed.law or on LinkedIn. This article is general information, not legal advice.