The world is a different place since COVID-19 hit. By that rubric, the 2022 edition of the Council on Foundations’ State of Global Giving Report — which explores philanthropic data from between 2015 and 2019 — may seem like a snapshot of another era.
But it also offers baseline perspectives on how work in key areas like health and human rights have continued on an upward trajectory in the quarter-century that COF has studied global trends. And it shares current insights from global funders on the social, economic, health and political implications of an unprecedented global crisis.
The nine voices it surveyed on the section covering 2020 to 2022 span the public, private and corporate sectors, along with one service organization. Among them were representatives from the Ford Foundation, the Citi Foundation, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and Global Greengrants Fund.
Here are five topline takeaways on the state of global giving:
Growing focus, growing dollars
In the respondents’ view, the pandemic accelerated a focus on global funding that was already underway. The numbers bear that out. Datasets from the Candid Foundation 1000, which captures grants of $10,000 or more made by the 1,000 largest U.S. foundations, forms the basis of the council’s report. It tracked $8 billion in giving in 2019 alone, four times the total in 2002. Going forward, the consensus is that COVID-19 has further eased global giving through the wholesale adoption of new technologies that broke down relationship and communications barriers.
SDGs offer a common language
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were adopted by U.N. member nations in January of 2016 have become “a common language” for global philanthropy. While few funders claimed intentional pivots in strategies, many found the SDG framework useful, particularly when showing how work aligns with other funders. The SDGs also provide a forum for cross-sector collaboration, as seen in the robust philanthropic activity that took place on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly last September. A full 84% of global giving between 2016 and 2019 aligned with the SDGs.
Global problems, American grantees
International giving continues to flow through intermediaries, though several organizations noted a growing shift toward funding NGOs headquartered in priority countries versus U.S. intermediaries as structural constraints allow. Still, a full 61% of globally focused foundation dollars supported organizations headquartered in the U.S.
Constraints on civil society remain a challenge
Restrictions on cross-border giving continue to challenge potential funders. That includes constraints on the way foundations and NGOs can operate in places like China, for example, where a 2017 Foreign NGO Law requires funders to both maintain local representation and partner with Chinese organizations on the ground. While limitations can make it harder to meet in-country funding objectives, the situation is not without an upside. One respondent reminded donors that giving within cultural context isn’t “a bad thing,” and that work that’s appreciated locally can be a win-win.
Health is the top priority
Through 2019, nearly half of all global giving continued to focus on health. The top three focus areas in the latest report were Health (48.5%), Economic and Community Development (14%) and the Environment (11.5%), which roughly mirrored the rankings in the prior report.
Between 2015 and 2019, Health giving totaled $16.2 billion, versus $18.6 billion during the 2011 to 2015 timeframe. Notably, excluding Gates from the latest period would drop heath’s share of global giving to 20%. Look for health funding to grow in successive periods, along with pandemic interventions.
Economic Development was largely static, increasing from $4.4 billion to $4.7 billion. And while the drumbeat on climate change has grown in urgency, the report showed negligible change in funding levels between this report and the last. Between 2016 and 2019, total Environment giving was $3.8 billion. Between 2011 and 2015, it came in at $3.9 billion. Other reports have found surging climate giving since 2020, however, so we may expect higher numbers going forward.
One encouraging finding — the fastest-growing category is one that recognizes an increased awareness of inequity. Human Rights garnered 11% of global grant dollars between 2016 and 2019 — up from less than 7% during the prior period.
On a macro level, the report puts the overall share of global giving at a steady 25% and suggests that globally focused philanthropy continues to be a priority for more than two-thirds of donors. If the lessons of COVID took hold, look for that giving to increase in flexibility, along with appreciation for local perspectives.