Vanguard Charitable’s Most Support Charities, Post-COVID

Earlier this week, Vanguard Charitable released some of its charitable giving numbers for 2025.   It stated that it had a “ninth straight year of record giving” which “reflects a 27% increase in giving from 2024.”

Not surprisingly, 25% of that giving occurred after November 1, 2025.  More surprising, at least to me, was the top five recipients by number of grants:

                Doctors without Borders USA

                World Central Kitchen

                ACLU Foundation

                Planned Parenthood Federation of America

                St. Judes Children’s Research Hospital.

Vanguard also highlighted the fact that $19.0 million was granted to food banks during the government shutdown between October 1 to November 13.

It struck me that these donations had a “political” flavor to them – small “p”, not political in terms of electioneering – in that they were clearly involved not just current events but current events that had an advocacy vibe to them.   Both Doctors without Borders and WCK show up at places of upheaval including disaster areas but also areas of conflict and political strife.   ALCU and Planned Parenthood speak for themselves.

 It prompted me to go back and look at prior reports.  In 2024,  Vanguard Charitable provided a top 10 list, with those five charities showing up a 1,2,4, 5 and 6.    In 2023, these charities were 1, 2, 3, 4 and 10.  In 2022, the ACLU Foundation does not appear on the list, but the others remain 1,2,3 and 6. In 2021, The ACLU Foundation is back on the list, but World Central Kitchen does not appear; other interesting additions that year include ethe Southern Poverty Law Center and the Natural Resources Defense Council.   In 2020, Doctors without Borders was 2 for the first time (it was at 1 all other years); Planned Parenthood was 1, with the ACLU Foundation at 5, and St Judes at 9.    Many of the other charities on the top ten lists over the years had a social services support mission, often religiously affiliated, such as Samaritan’s Purse, and The Salvation Army.

Maybe its just my impression in looking at the lists, but I wonder if this says anything of any import about donor advised fund giving – who give and how they use these funds as part of their charitable giving strategies.  It does appear surprisingly reactive to current events. 

 In “How Unexpected Events Affect Charity Donor’s’ Giving: Vanguard Charitable,” Michael Fischer of ThinkAdvsor looked at this very issue after Vanguards 2024 report was issued.   He cited to Vanguard’s own research that found that donor advised fund donor’s were, in fact, more responsive to unexpected events, with “seven in 10 donors identified two or more types of events that they said inspired their unexpected giving, suggesting that donors respond to a variety of prompts for giving.” 

I’m putting this on my list of collateral impacts of potential DAF regulations to consider – clearly an area for further research.  

Curiously, eww