Giving Compass' Take:

• A recent study from Fidelity Charitable indicated that three in four donors will give the same or increase their charitable giving in 2020. 

• Are you planning to expand your giving due to the current global world events? In what other ways will your philanthropy change?

•  Here is a comprehensive list of vetted funds dedicated to helping those most affected by COVID-19.


Three in four donors plan to give the same or more to charity this year than they did in 2019, a study commissioned by Fidelity Charitable on giving and volunteering finds.

Based on a survey conducted between March 18 and 30 of more than eighteen hundred Americans who donated at least $1,000 to charity in 2019, the report, COVID-19 and Philanthropy: How Donor Behaviors Are Shifting Amid Pandemic (7 pages, PDF), found that, with the emergence and spread of COVID-19 globally, 25 percent of respondents planned to increase their giving this year, while 54 percent planned to maintain it at current levels. Millennials (46 percent) were more likely than Gen-Xers (25 percent) and boomers (14 percent) to say they planned to give more.

Those who planned to give more said they were doing so because the need is great (63 percent), they want to help out (61 percent), their community is suffering (46 percent), they want to support nonprofits working to address the impacts of the coronavirus (42 percent), and/or the nonprofits they already support need additional funding (40 percent). According to the report, respondents were particularly concerned about the ability of human services nonprofits (83 percent), small or community-based nonprofits (82 percent), and health and medical research organizations (77 percent) to continue their work as the virus spreads. Of the 9 percent of respondents who said they expected to donate less in 2020, more than half said they were not sure what their income would be (58 percent) and/or were worried about a recession and the economy overall (58 percent).

The survey also found that a relatively small percentage of respondents planned to volunteer more (17 percent) or the same (26 percent) in 2020 as in 2019, while 47 percent said they will volunteer less or stop volunteering altogether.

Other DAF sponsors also have seen significant increases in giving since the coronavirus began spreading globally, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

Read the full article about donors who plan to give more due to coronavirus by Michael Theis at Philanthropy News Digest.