In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, most American donors maintained their charitable giving, while corporations responded with increased giving and multiyear pledges, a report from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy finds.

Funded by Salesforce.org and based on surveys, data from multiple sources, and interviews, the report, Understanding Philanthropy in Times of Crisis: The Role of Giving Back During COVID-19 (43 pages, PDF), found that the share of individuals reporting that they gave to charitable organizations, individuals, or businesses increased between 4 percentage points and 6 percentage points between May and September 2020. Individual donors were most likely to support human services and health organizations in response to the pandemic, with 81 percent of respondents in May and 87 percent in September indicating they maintained or increased their giving in that area.

Data from Charity Navigator showed that end-of-year giving made up a larger portion of individual giving than in the previous two years, with 64 percent of annual giving occurring in December 2020, compared with 58 percent and 56 percent in 2018 and 2019. And according to the report, the experiences of Global Impact and the CDC Foundation suggest that innovation and digital adaptation were vital to meeting new demands during COVID-19.

Read the full article about corporate giving during COVID-19 at Philanthropy News Digest.