(Photo by iStock/edelmar)
This article is adapted from the full-length essay “Slow Philanthropy: Why giving by the ultra-wealthy often lags behind their ambitions—and what could help move money faster,” published at Bridgespan.org.
One of the most striking stories of this era is the massive accumulation of wealth among the very few. The wealth held by the richest 0.1 percent of Americans now exceeds the GDP of every country in the world except two (China and the United States). And that is before the anticipated wave of wealth as AI companies go public. Meanwhile, about half of the nation’s roughly one thousand billionaires are 70 or older, so a great deal of money will soon flow somewhere. Understandably, this newest gilded age has inspired a lot of writing about what it means for philanthropy and society, and what can be done with all that wealth.
Yet one topic has received far less attention: why the philanthropic giving of so many ultra-wealthy people lags far behind the aspirations they express. I call this pattern “slow philanthropy.”
When you look at what the wealthiest American families give each year, the number is relatively low and strikingly stable. The Bridgespan Group’s research found that families with more than $500 million in assets gave about 1.2 percent of those assets in 2017. When we ran the same analysis for 2023, the figure was essentially unchanged, even as those assets compounded at rates at or above the S&P 500’s long-run average of roughly 9 percent. In absolute dollars, giving rose. As a share of wealth, it stood still.
Philanthropy has been a focus of Bridgespan’s work since our founding 25 years ago (half of our advisory work is with nonprofits and half with funders). Over the past few years, when people have asked me about our strategy as it relates to philanthropy, I invariably conclude with some version of: “When you step back, the meta-question we are always grappling with is: How do you help and motivate philanthropists to give more?” When my conversation partner inevitably asks for the answer, I offer a word salad sprinkled with (I hope) a few interesting observations and end by saying, “I’m humbled by how hard it is to change giving patterns in philanthropy.”
Until we better understand what is holding philanthropy back—what truly keeps capital from moving at greater scale and greater speed—we won’t make meaningful progress in helping people bring their giving more fully in line with their highest aspirations. This gap between aspiration and action is consequential not only for philanthropy but also, most importantly, for the people and organizations whose work strengthens our human and natural communities, expands opportunity, and improves lives.
What Adds Friction to Philanthropy?
After reading a detailed Bridgespan article on barriers to greater giving, a thoughtful observer complimented my colleagues and then wondered whether we were making the issue too complicated: “If a billionaire gives away a lot of money, they will no longer be a billionaire. And all things being equal, they’d rather be a billionaire than not.”
Yet speaking privately with ultra-wealthy individuals about their giving or reading the letters Giving Pledgers write announcing their philanthropic intentions, many appear deeply committed to those aspirations. The large gap between aspiration and action suggests something more complicated is at work.
Some of the friction comes from the external conditions around them. For instance, in its effort to “solve problems,” philanthropy has overpromised and underdelivered—breeding disillusionment in the quest for “transformative impact” or “population-level change.” Afterall, the kinds of change such ambitions seek often unfolds across generations, not a single lifetime. Philanthropy also now operates under far greater public scrutiny, with more people subscribing to Stanford scholar Rob Reich’s observation that “Big philanthropy is an exercise of power and in a democracy, power deserves scrutiny not just gratitude.” At the same time, a booming wealth-management industry designed primarily to preserve and grow fortunes, not give them away, can slow philanthropy, too. Add in a pervasive sense of precarity that’s felt, improbably, even by billionaires, and the result is a climate that encourages caution rather than bold giving.
But the more revealing frictions are often internal. Looking more closely at how donors make decisions, four recurring patterns emerge. First, failure feels worse in philanthropy; while a for-profit investor might celebrate a portfolio of ten investments that had two “home runs,” five average performers, and three underperformers, donors rarely think about their philanthropy this way. Second, concerns about inefficiency and waste take on outsized importance, reinforcing habits such as low overhead expectations and onerous grant terms (despite mountains of evidence challenging those practices) that create a self-fulfilling cycle and narrows the set of organizations deemed “fundable.” Third, decision rights also prove surprisingly hard to let go of. It is not uncommon for major donors (even those with professional staff) to insist on approving every grant. Yet for most philanthropists, philanthropy is a part-time activity, and there is no realistic way to give money away thoughtfully and at scale without delegating (unless giving massive gifts, which are uncommon). Finally, many donors underestimate nonprofits’ ability to productively absorb substantial philanthropic capital, even though recent experience and evidence—exemplified by MacKenzie Scott and Ballmer Group—suggest otherwise.
Cumulatively these frictions, whatever their source, produce a powerful default behavior: delay. Every nonprofit seeking support from a philanthropist is not just competing with other nonprofits, but with a donor’s option to leave the money in the bank—and maybe give later. In the absence of a forcing function, delay is costless to the donor and easy to rationalize. I’ve been in more than one conversation with donors over 75 years old who assert they are going to give most or all their money away but have no plan for doing so. Delay is a feature, not a bug, of contemporary philanthropy.
Where Do We See Philanthropic Capital Flow
To understand what might ease those frictions, it is useful to look at where giving has flowed more freely. Over the past two decades, three areas stand out: bequests, donor-advised funds, and the Founders Pledge.
Bequests
According to recent Giving USA data, charitable bequests reached a record $62 billion in 2025, growing nearly 20 percent and substantially outpacing growth in giving by living donors. Federal tax data indicate that among estates worth $50 million or more, charitable giving has hovered around 20 percent of gross estate value in recent years. Because only about half of estates in that category report charitable bequests, the implied average among those who do give is roughly 40 percent of wealth directed to charity.
Bequests sidestep many of the internal frictions that slow philanthropy. While living, donors often construct elaborate processes and controls around their philanthropy, seeking clarity, confidence, and reassurance about how their money will be used. By contrast, charitable bequests are typically made with remarkably little direction beyond the named organization or the individuals designated to make decisions. As one ultra-wealthy individual explained only partially in jest, “I’ll be gone. I won’t be around to see what happens!”
Donor-Advised Funds
While donor-advised funds (DAFs) date back nearly a century, their rapid expansion over the past 50 years has made them one of the most significant innovations in modern philanthropy. As of 2024, DAFs held roughly $325 billion according to the DAF Research Collaborative and continue to grow faster than any other philanthropic vehicle.
What most distinguishes DAFs is that they allow donors to receive an immediate tax benefit while deferring decisions about where the funds will ultimately go. This feature has faced sharp criticism, with people calling it the “warehousing of wealth” and often suggesting that DAFs ought to at least be subject to a 5 percent payout rate like private foundations.
Yet in practice, DAF sponsors on average distribute funds at rates that compare favorably to those of private foundations. By one common measure—annual grants as a share of prior-year assets—DAFs have payout rates of roughly 25 percent, compared to approximately 7 percent for private foundations. The comparison is imperfect, however, as the average payout rate masks variations in individual accounts, some of which distribute funds quickly and others which more slowly; this and other variables make it difficult to see the flows into DAF accounts and from them into the sector. In any case, DAFs represent a significant and growing source of funds for nonprofits.
While the tax benefit is clearly attractive (and costly to the US Treasury), another feature may account for much of DAFs’ growth: They allow donors to make a binding commitment even if they have not yet determined how or when the funds will be used. It is, in effect, delay with purpose.
Some critics argue that, absent DAFs, this money would otherwise flow directly to nonprofits. Given the complexities and frictions surrounding giving, however, a more likely outcome is that much of it would simply remain in private bank accounts.
Founders Pledge
In 2015, Founders Forum (a global community supporting entrepreneurs) launched Founders Pledge, through which founders commit, on average, 2 percent of the equity in their early-stage companies to charity. The pledge is typically structured as a transfer of stock into a DAF, from which the donor can later make gifts, assuming the company is successful. Founders Pledge reports that over 2,200 founders have made this commitment, with the value of pledged assets exceeding $12.9 billion, and more than $1.7 billion already flowing into the nonprofit sector.
Like DAFs, Founders Pledge creates a binding philanthropic commitment before donors must decide exactly where the money will go. It also leverages a simple but powerful proposition: It is easier to give away money one doesn’t yet have.
The Power of a Two-Step Giving Process
All three of these pathways separate two distinct steps in the giving process: making a binding commitment to philanthropy and deciding where the money will ultimately go. It is in that second step—as it has come to be understood and enacted over the past several decades—that the flow of capital slows.
It is worth noting that this kind of two-step process is not new. Early in the 20th century, the founding of community foundations and community chests (later evolving into the United Way) institutionalized similar structures. Today’s examples vary in how they handle the second step. With bequests, donors effectively cede control over allocation only after death. With DAFs and Founders Pledge, they retain authority over the second step.
What all three approaches share is that they make the act of commitment relatively simple while deferring or reshaping the demands of allocation. By separating these two decisions, they lower the hurdle to acting on a philanthropic impulse. The relative simplicity and ease with which donors take the first, irrevocable step may offer one of the clearest insights into what it will take to unlock much greater giving from the ultra-wealthy.
Getting Money Moving Faster
There is not an easy “how-to” guide to accelerate the flow of philanthropy. That said, there are glimmers of possibility—emerging ideas, practices, and developments that may help or point toward new ways of thinking about the challenge.
One place to start is where donors are already taking that first, irrevocable step. We might make those pathways work even better. A simple way to accelerate money flowing into the sector would be to add payout requirements to DAFs (recognizing that there is a debate about how that would affect the use of DAFs.) There are several efforts of this sort being pursued, although they are at the early stages of getting traction.
For bequests, we could make efforts to expand their charitable reach. Today, most charitable bequest dollars either endow private foundations or flow to elite higher education, health, and culture institutions. But what if charitable bequests to a broader range of nonprofits were made easier? Bridgespan research suggests that significantly more giving could be unlocked if an institution were built specifically to facilitate bequest giving to a broader range of issues.
Another opportunity is to make the allocation decision itself easier. Over the past decade, a wave of collaborative funds and new giving platforms have emerged as a meaningful part of the philanthropic landscape. Audacious Project, Blue Meridian Partners, Coefficient Giving, Climate Lead, ICONIQ Impact, Lever for Change, and Renaissance Philanthropy, among many other new players, offer donors an easy way to access expertise and vetted deal flow. These new institutions meet a growing desire of philanthropists to have lean teams and tap into outside institutions for help. Investments in these kinds of institutions may help donors move more money, more quickly.
Even with these kinds of changes, philanthropy in America is a voluntary act. Since mindsets profoundly shape how people act, getting philanthropy to move faster may also require the less straightforward work of shifting norms. (See also an excellent report by National Center for Family Philanthropy and Ideas42 on this topic.) I think of this as restoring the luster of charitable giving.
For instance, what if alongside systems-change strategies, that can be complex and move slowly, we reinvigorate “big charity”: large-scale gifts with direct impact. Scholarship programs, medical debt relief, direct cash transfers, and land conservation often find themselves overlooked because they are not seen as “strategic” or as “solving” the problem—but should they be? In late 2025, several major philanthropic commitments of this type were announced: Michael and Susan Dell donating $6.25 billion to investment accounts for 25 million U.S. children, Ray and Barbara Dalio doing the same for all children in Connecticut, and the Ballmer Group committing $1.7 billion to fund an additional 10,000 slots for early education in Washington State.
Another opportunity is to reacquaint donors with “the gift.” The gift offers a different orientation—one that emphasizes generosity, mutual aid, community, relationships, and moral obligation rather than optimization and ROI. Religious and Indigenous traditions across cultures and centuries are full of stories that center gift-giving, and anthropologists have shown how gift exchange can form the basis of an economy and serve as the fabric of society. Over the past few years, Jason Lewis has written about philanthropy as a “gift” versus a strategic investment. It is worth noting that the most generous individual philanthropist of this century, MacKenzie Scott, refers to her philanthropy as “gifts.”
A third might simply be defining “enough.” At its core, the concept involves clarifying how much wealth people believe they truly need, so then the rest becomes easier to give away. It is an old idea. Carnegie’s The Gospel of Wealth argued that surplus fortunes carried moral obligations to society. But in a moment of unprecedented wealth concentration, the idea of defining “enough” may find greater resonance than it has in the past.
There are surely other ideas than those offered here. And bigger questions that need to be asked about the implications of the concentration of wealth in society. Of course, none of this is simple. My hope is that by better understanding what slows philanthropy, we can fan the flames of even more experimentation with how to help ultra-wealthy people give at greater scale and with greater speed.
Read more stories by Jeffrey L. Bradach.