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Slightly more Americans (7.4%) are realizing that they encounter nonprofits in everyday life, a slight uptick from the 5.4% when the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University published its 2023 report on how Americans view nonprofits.
The rub is that 71.9% people reported engaging in at least one activity typically provided by nonprofits, meaning nearly 90% of nonprofit users did not initially identify themselves as such.
Respondents were less likely now than in 2023 to say nonprofits are more effective than government at providing basic needs, declining from 24.6% to 18.9%. A troubling note is that the public’s views on the roles of nonprofits and government remain mixed, with fewer Americans favoring nonprofits as the better provider of basic needs. The largest shares of respondents said nonprofits and government are too different to compare or that provider identity matters less than service availability.
What Americans Think About Nonprofits & Philanthropy 2026, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation returns to core questions about public awareness, confidence, and expectations for the nonprofit sector. It examines whether Americans recognize nonprofits’ role in everyday life, whether they express confidence in the sector, and how policy and current events may shape views of charitable giving and the respective roles of nonprofits and government.
“The nonprofit sector is a part of everyday life in ways many people do not immediately identify,” said Jon Bergdoll, Interim Director of Data and Research Partnerships at the IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and lead analyst on the report. “That recognition gap matters. It affects not just things like whether they donate, but how they react to events or policies that affect the nonprofit sector as a whole.”
Key findings include:
* Confidence in nonprofits is higher than confidence in many other institutions but remains limited and malleable. Nonprofits were among the groups with the highest levels of confidence, similar to individuals, religious institutions, and future or rising generations. However, only 23.3% of respondents expressed high confidence in nonprofits’ ability to solve societal or global problems. Additionally, 22.7% said their confidence in nonprofits would decrease if a trusted political figure expressed a lack of confidence in the sector.
* While nearly one in five Americans expect to increase their giving in response to the universal charitable deduction, anticipated use of the provision appears more muted as an enacted policy rather than a hypothetical one. More than three-quarters of respondents said their giving would stay the same, while 19% said their giving would increase due to the universal charitable deduction. This is a decrease from 24.4% when compared to the 2023 report, showing that expected increases appear more subdued once a policy becomes reality.
* Americans remain uncertain about the direction of the sector. More than half of respondents (53.5%) said they did not know whether the nonprofit and philanthropic sector was headed in the right direction or was on the wrong track.
“From the after-school program down the block, to the food bank down the street, to the local performing arts stage, nonprofits are a central part of our community life,” said Marselle Alexander-Ozinskas, program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. “This research points to the opportunity to speak more clearly about the sector’s role in everyday life, and to build the public understanding and investment that a thriving nonprofit sector depends on — one that is well resourced, as varied as the people it serves, and present in every community.”
Data in the report also showed that Americans continue to prefer foundations operating in perpetuity. Similar to the 2023 results, 78.7% of respondents believe foundations should reserve their assets to give over time or in perpetuity, compared with 21.3% who said foundations should give their assets away quickly or immediately.
Read the full report.
