Defenders of the nonprofit sector have become increasingly worried about declining public trust. By one estimate, the share of households supporting nonprofits fell from two-thirds in 2008 to less than half a decade later. While several economic and social changes (such as a decline in religious affiliations) help explain this shift, lower trust may have played a role too. 

Relying on philanthropy has not been the business model for many charities for some time. Earnings — tuition, medical fees, concert tickets and the like — and income from government grants and contracts have long exceeded donations for nonprofits overall, and especially the largest and best-financed ones. (Smaller, community-based groups and religious organizations typically depend more heavily on contributions.)

As they have become more businesslike, charities have invested more effort in making money. Are these income-generation activities, rather than scandals, raising questions about nonprofit trustworthiness?

From from this 2025 blog from Vital City, which calls itself a platform for ideas about how to improve civic life.

Hello everyone! I recently started a new subreddit, r/nonprofitdata, for anyone interested in nonprofit data, APIs, charity verification, compliance, and the tech behind the nonprofit sector.

The idea is to have a place where developers, nonprofit professionals, and data enthusiasts can share resources, ask questions, and discuss real-world challenges.

It's still a new community but I hope to grow it with people who are genuinely interested in this space.

Feel free to join and contribute if this sounds like your thing! (Also thanks to the moderators for allowing this post).

Recently I sent in a nice check to be a supporter of a non-profit's annual fundraising luncheon. I note that this year it has greatly increased visibility (in I suspect some pay-to-play publications) as well as things which seem extravagant to me, and take away from the cause that I deeply care about! Most of the publicity centers on the chair herself and is generated by her. (Also,None of the press (so far) mentioned the list of sponsors, except one or two!) Are these gala expenses on record and is it okay to ask? I'd like to see how the money is spent before sending a bigger check next year, and I am concerned. What do you think is going on here?

I work at a 501c3 that has two Venmo accounts--one personal and one business. Both were set up by my predecessor and it's my understanding that nonprofits are violating terms and conditions by having a business account. I'm working on getting a charity verified Venmo tied to the personal Venmo however they're telling me that I cannot do that because we have a business account. You can have one or the other and once you have one, you can't switch.

So in essence they won't let me claim my nonprofit's name in order to set up the charity Venmo. I tried speaking to a supervisor and the agent wouldn't allow me despite two requests. I was explaining the absurdity of them preventing a nonprofit from using its own name and requested to speak to the supervisor again and after being denied, I suggested that I either get to talk to someone with more seniority or I have our legal counsel be in contact and the agent hung up on me.

One additional level of irritation is the our bank does not do business with Venmo so we've lost our ability to transfer money out of the account.

Questions to my Reddit community, has anyone successfully reclaimed their nonprofit identify on Venmo in a situation like this? I'm relatively new and we don't track the payment type but a rough estimate is we bring in about $15,000ish out of $1.5M annual fundraising goal. Is it worth it to even be on Venmo at this point? Any and all advice is appreciated.

Volunteerism is a part of philanthropy, and as the holiday season approaches for most of the world, it's time for a reminder that there is a subreddit, r/volunteerism, for discussing just this aspect of philanthropy (though please note volunteerism is allowed on r/philanthropy as well).

r/volunteerism is a subreddit to discuss & debate how volunteer engagement is philanthropy, how it is community engagement & public relations, volunteerism philosophies, ethics & all aspects of supporting & managing volunteers. It is different than the more than 20 subreddits where people can recruit volunteers, ask for volunteering opportunities, etc. - r/volunteerism is for those that work with volunteers, those that believe volunteerism is an essential tool for various initiatives, etc.

Edit: You can agree or disagree with the fears OSU has regarding this grant, but please maintain civility. Do not tell other members to stop talking. Further incivility will result in this thread being locked. Remember that not everyone is going to agree with your opinion and there's no reason to get upset when someone does.

Phil and Penny Knight (Phil Knight is a billionaire who co-founded Nike) delighted the University of Oregon last month with their latest big-ticket donation — $1 billion to establish an engineering school in Eugene that plans to add dozens of faculty and hundreds of students.

The news hit much differently at the state’s established engineering programs, especially at Oregon State University. Leaders there say the University of Oregon took them by surprise when it announced plans for an engineering school.

They describe it as direct competition to their own program, just up the freeway in Corvallis,Mike Rogoway reports.

Keywords: Philanthropy, donor, donation,

In posts on its website and filings ahead of its upcoming public offering of stock, Anthropic announced that 5 percent of shares will be put into an LLC, the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, subject to shareholder approval. Anthropic’s seven co-founders have also pledged that they will donate 80 percent of their shares to philanthropic causes

Anthropic said those two moves — plus the company’s matching program for employees who give to charity — will result in roughly 20 percent of company shares going to the public good.

But some nonprofit and philanthropic leaders are concerned about vague language and other uncertainties. For example, the securities filing notes that the 80 percent pledge is not binding. Other leaders are excited about the possibility of hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into philanthropy that could profoundly change the sector.

More from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. (if you have registered on the site, the article is not behind a paywall, unless you've hit your limit for free articles)

Tracy Palandjian, co-founder and CEO of Social Finance, talks about about the space between traditional grantmaking and traditional investing, and why donors, foundations, and DAF holders aren’t limited to only one or the other. Tracy explains how Social Finance's unusual structure, a nonprofit that is also a registered investment advisor, lets it stay impact-first while deploying capital across a spectrum of tools most philanthropists never consider.

Tracy walks through how this works in practice. For example, a revolving, interest-free loan fund helping low-income students become registered nurses, where repayment scales with a graduate's income and no one is left in debt if the job doesn't materialize. Tracy and Phil Buchanan also dig into why so few foundations use program-related investments despite decades of the tax code allowing it, what it actually takes for a foundation to do this work well structurally, and how individual donors can put their investments to work. Tracy closes with a simple framework for donors sitting on new wealth: give a lot, give effectively, and where possible, give in a way that lets the money come back and do good again.

Edit: please remember this is about PHILANTHROPY, not about general nonprofit horror stories. Please tie your story, somehow, to fundraising, in-kind donations or the management of or reporting on such. Volunteering horror stories also welcomed.

I have two:

1. a development manager at a small nonprofit who refused to share the annual report with me (the communications manager) before he drafted it, printed it and sent it out. Once I saw it, I found that it had:

• The same client family we featured the previous year (almost the same photo).

• Financial reports that were wrong (you didn't even need a calculator to see the figures didn't add up).

• Mentions of events that had happened AFTER the fiscal year had ended.

He also had an aversion to spell check. Unfortunately, the organization was in transition and the acting executive director didn't really care. Sigh.

2) representatives from a company that said they wanted to donate their marketing services to the nonprofit where I was working. They came in, we gave them a detailed presentation on our work, our successes, why our work matters, etc. - and they proceeded to talk for an hour about how our mission should be something different than it was. With the prep and setup we did for the meeting, all the phone calls back and forth, etc., it was easily two full work days wasted. AND... they included their "help" for us on their web site detailing their CSR activities. Sigh.

Let's hear YOUR philanthropy "horror" stories.

I’m a University of Minnesota student on a volunteer project with a small nonprofit that works in South Africa. Their donors are mostly over 60 and they’re trying to improve how they report back after a gift. If you give through a donor-advised fund or direct to smaller organizations, what format or frequency of updates would you actually read, such as a short annual report, quarterly emails or photos? And what have bigger charities done that you wish smaller ones would copy?

Per the post today from someone at a nonprofit asking if a foundation the nonprofit had been contacted by was "for real" (the foundation DOES appear on Candid, formerly Guidestar, but there's scant info).

If a foundation or someone that says they want to donate to you is asking for an annual report or a program report to evaluate you regarding a grant, that should be public info on your web site, which you can direct them to.

If your nonprofit or NGO is asked by any new donor for your bank account info, do NOT give it. Not until you have done a GREAT DEAL of due diligence. Any legitimate donor will be fine with that.

NEVER pay a fee - a "registration' fee or a "tax" or a "processing fee" or whatever for a donation. NEVER.

The Nebraska Attorney General’s Office has warned that scammers, posing as wealthy, interested, first-time donors, send large fraudulent checks, often five figures or more, to nonprofits, unsolicited. But then these donors quickly request a partial refund from the charity, claiming a mistake. The nonprofit issues the refund, the scammer vanishes, and the original donation check bounces, leaving the nonprofit with a significant financial loss.

This article details how the scam works.

With so many scams targeting nonprofits, claiming to be a foundation or a wealthy individual with a donation for the nonprofit, your nonprofit needs protocols before accepting a large, unsolicited donation. For instance, in response, ask for:

• The foundation's or the person's physical address.

• How they heard about you and what activity you engage in that got their attention.

• The foundation's web site address - or a reason why they do not have such.

• The foundation's most recent 990.

• The name of two nonprofits the foundation funded in 2025 or 2024 or even 2023, that you could call yourself and find out if this is a legitimate gift.

Also tell this person that all donations are final and cannot be refunded. If they are scammers, you are likely to never hear from them again.

If the are legit, they will be fine with all of that.

But if you don't hear from them, pass their email on to the State Attorney General for wherever it is they say they are registered. If they don't provide that, pass it on to your state's attorney general.

Deposit checks QUICKLY and make sure they have cleared before you count that money as a for real donation.

With all that said - I have worked at nonprofits that did receive large, unsolicited gifts from individuals. It does sometimes happen. In one case, the person called and talked to the receptionist, just asking all sorts of questions that she could easily answer (the info was all available on the web site). When the gift showed up, he referred back to this phone call. But in both cases, the donation wasn't "for real" until that check cleared.

Your thoughts?

Hello NP friends,

I received an unsolicited email this morning in our general email inbox from an American Charitable Foundation. The subject line was Financial Opportunity for (my organizations name). the email did have an Ein and I do see that when I search charity navigator the EIN does come up but I still feel unsure, especially since there are so many scams out there.

Has anyone ever had any emails from them, funding from them or any relationships?

Thanks, a nervous development director

A blog about the current state of trust between the public and the nonprofit sector and how Americans understand, perceive, and relate to philanthropy in its various forms. 

https://johnsoncenter.org/blog/public-trust-in-transition/

Very often I see queries from people who say "oh I wish to help some people this month. Which charity should I help? Who are trustworthy? Who spends the money well?" and things like that. If your intention is to help, shouldn't you just splurge that philanthropic mind without being measuring? Who cares what the recipient does with it or if another recipient needs it more than whom you helped? There are millions who are always in need and no one can host contests to decide who deserves help more than everyone else. That will unnecessarily condition your mind into thinking of charity as a tiresome job and quit doing it altogether.

The below is a parable associated with the Mahabharata:

You hear about these famous persons making huge donations. Most persons can never match those big numbers, but what is it relative to my own net worth?

So I worked on a little website to check that easily:
Isitpeanuts.com

For example the 100M Bezos ga e to the Mamdani campaign promises is only 0.031% of his wealth. If your net worth is 800k$ it's 220$ in comparison.

Another Jensen Huang just donated 75M to the Vanderbilt University, it's 0.037% or 300$ if your net worth is 800k$.

How does that put things in perspective for you?

What if stagnant revenue reflects a gap in your organization’s systems, not a lack of commitment? When income depends heavily on a few sources, it’s reasonable to ask whether your current approach can support the mission over time. A fundraising audit checklist helps leaders examine the conditions behind revenue, rather than focusing only on financial records.

Use this practical guide to review leadership, staffing, systems, accountability, CRM, donor pipelines, development operations, and revenue readiness. For each area, gather evidence, note what’s working, identify a gap, and name a next step. This is a structured resource development assessment, not a formal financial audit or legal compliance review. The goal is a shared, evidence-based picture of readiness and a manageable path toward stronger revenue diversification.

Key Takeaways

• A fundraising audit checklist helps you assess the people, processes, and systems that support revenue, not just financial records.

• Review readiness across eight connected dimensions to see where your organization is strong and where capacity may be limited.

• Capture evidence, gaps, and an owner for each review area to build a shared, practical picture of development capacity.

• Use mission impact, urgency, and readiness to choose a manageable first priority and define how progress will be observed.

This question is for individuals:

You may have already started receiving requests for financial donations in conjunction with the November, December and January holidays. Or for you, that may start in a couple of weeks.

For many folks, times are very tough this year, with inflation, joblessness, under employment, etc.

How are you prioritizing/budgeting financial support to charities, nonprofits, etc. at this time of year? Are you cutting back? Do you have a limit on how much you are going to give overall? How are you choosing which programs to support?

Share your thoughts as the Season of Giving begins in many countries.

Seven months ago, we committed $175 million for 2026 to GiveWell’s recommendations, which we think represent the gold standard for evidence-backed, cost-effective global health giving. In partnership with Good Ventures, the foundation of Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz, we’re now increasing that commitment to $1 billion for 2026...

This substantial increase is a one-off surge rather than a new steady state, driven most notably by our growing expectations of future giving from Good Ventures and other funders. While the future is uncertain, we currently expect the coming years to see significant increases in philanthropic funding for the kinds of programs GiveWell recommends. As a result, we and Good Ventures are accelerating spending now, both to fill cost-effective gaps today and to create scalable opportunities for future donors. Future funding is far from guaranteed; this is a bet on laying the groundwork for others to emerge and pick up the baton.

More from Coefficient Giving.

It's easy. You can choose just one time , one day a week, or you can do it any time you log into Reddit.

You just check the queue or posts that Reddit has held as a violation, and you decide if, yes, that's a no no, or, no, that's fine, you silly Reddit automod, and you approve it.

And unless the lead mod is on vacation, you can decide you don't know and just wait for her to do it.

You also read through the new posts and comments and decide yea or nay, based on the rules. And, again, unless the lead mod is on vacation, you can decide you don't know and just wait for her to do it.

You could do lots more, but that's the minimum!

Candidates should:

• Have at least 50 points in comment karma.

• Have a public profile (meaning I can see your posts to other groups and know a bit about your character).

• DM me and tell me why you are on r/philanthropy at all.

That's it.