Today, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) released the 12th edition of the State of Disaster Philanthropy (SODP), which explores 2023 giving and practices, how philanthropy is responding to current changes and uncertainty, and strategies to strengthen disaster philanthropy.

The State of Disaster Philanthropy: Key Findings

In 2023, the Maui wildfires and the Turkey-Syria and Morocco earthquakes dominated headlines, affecting millions of people and destroying thousands of homes and businesses. How did philanthropy respond? The research found that in 2023, of the $135.3 billion in philanthropic giving, according to Candid’s database, $1.2 billion, or 0.9%, went toward disasters. Based on the scale and intensity of disasters and crises, more philanthropic investment is needed to strengthen affected communities.

This year’s edition of SODP calls on philanthropy to leverage its resources and strengths to do more both when a disaster occurs and, critically, beforehand. A consistent theme CDP has observed over the years of producing SODP is the significant funding for response and relief.

When examining how and where philanthropy focused its support for disasters, we see that among disaster assistance strategies, response and relief continued to receive the most funding and the highest number of transactions in 2023.

In addition to supporting immediate needs following a disaster, donors can have a lasting impact by helping communities prepare for disasters before they occur. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction references studies showing that $1 spent on disaster risk reduction delivers an average return of $15 in terms of averted future disaster recovery costs. From the giving data and through interviews with philanthropic leaders, we see philanthropy recognizing this importance.

Although it represented only a small proportion of funding across disaster assistance strategies in 2023, resilience, risk reduction and mitigation saw an encouraging threefold increase in the share of funding compared to 2022.

Insights From Philanthropic Leaders

To complement the data on philanthropic giving for disasters and to better understand how the field is responding to changes and uncertainty, as well as the strategies being used, we spoke with leaders from 16 organizations worldwide.

The data from this additional effort helps to round out the quantitative data and give it more color. It also highlights some trends in the current state of philanthropy. One of the more insightful and common themes to emerge in conversations with leaders was that philanthropy should avoid reactively focusing exclusively on what is happening now and instead maintain a more proactive, long-term view.

Read the full article about the State of Disaster Philanthropy report by Austin Snowbarger at Center for Disaster Philanthropy.