As a studious follower of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education’s annual “Insights on Voluntary Support for Education,” I’ve found that some familiar themes typically make an appearance.
Driven by the benevolence of reliable alumni donors, support for U.S. colleges and universities often correlates with the performance of the U.S. stock market. At the same time, CASE’s findings often surface a handful of red flags, the most notable being the inexorable consolidation of support flowing from affluent donors as their less-wealthy peers pull back.
CASE’s newest batch of key findings, which went live on April 14, generally sticks to this script.
Researchers collected data on charitable gifts and grants raised by private sources for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2024, and ending June 30, 2025 — a period that coincided with the Trump administration’s decision to suspend or terminate federal grants to U.S. colleges. Giving to the 670 participating institutions exceeded $78 billion, representing a 4% increase over the previous year.
While universities are raising more money than ever, the number of donors is shrinking, a trend that CASE President and CEO Sue Cunningham called “not sustainable over the long term” in the report’s introduction. This is the fourth consecutive year CASE captured declines in the number of alumni donors alongside record highs for funds received.
Add it all up, and the report represents a qualified success for higher ed fundraising. I suspect universities would prefer to raise money from a broad swath of the donor community. However, they’re facing the same headwinds as their fundraising peers in other sectors with what CASE calls a “donors down, dollars up” situation — economic unease across middle-income households, and a tax code that incentivizes affluent donors to give exponentially more.
In the absence of legislative action to reverse these trends, advancement officers can pat themselves on the back for keeping the spigots open during a fiscal year marked by unprecedented upheaval and federal funding cuts to higher ed institutions.
“The most important finding is that there is enduring donor confidence in higher education at a time when many institutions expected greater volatility,” Cunningham said in an email to IP. “Donors are signaling their trust in higher education by contributing to expanded access to education, supporting student success, and contributing to activities that serve communities.”
Next-gen donor influence is evolving, with some good signs
Cunningham noted that CASE’s data “reinforced that sources of support vary across types and levels of gifts, with the largest commitments often involving a mix of individuals, foundations and donor-advised funds.”
She was also struck by the sustained growth in bequest intentions and realized bequests, suggesting that “the next generation of donors is already influencing institutional fundraising, as opposed to [signaling] a forthcoming shift in behavior.”
The sound you are hearing is a collective — but guarded — sigh of relief from university fundraisers.
For years, they’ve been told that younger donors — more attuned to social justice issues than their baby boomer parents or greatest generation grandparents, according to some researchers — are less inclined to cut checks to their affluent alma maters. However, data pointing to growth in bequest intentions suggests that fundraisers are doing a stellar job in engaging a segment of next-generation donors — albeit perhaps an older segment.
CASE’s research also underscores a shift toward gifts supporting current operations, signaling donors’ interest in funding immediate and mission-critical needs. Younger alumni and donors, in particular, “tend to expect institutions to address the issues they care about most — such as access, student success, environmental impact or community benefit,” Cunningham said. “Paying attention to trends at your own institution, particularly generational differences in expectations, is an important takeaway.”
The donor pool continues to shrink — and that’s not good
Now we get to the glaring red flag — CASE’s finding that while total private support for colleges and universities is increasing, the number of donors is shrinking. If that wasn’t bad enough, the authors write that “the primary losses in donor numbers were concentrated among those who gave smaller gifts.”
Readers have seen this movie before. All across the philanthrosphere, younger and economically squeezed “middle-of-the-pyramid” donors are in retreat, while highly affluent givers, motivated by altruism and/or generous tax benefits, constitute a greater percentage of the pie. Cunningham noted this broader development is “further complicated by technology, which means generosity is increasingly expressed through vehicles and activities that may not be tracked specifically by institutions,” such as crowdfunding, dispelling, at least to some extent, fears that Americans are becoming less generous.
As is the case elsewhere in the sector, rising aggregate support alongside diminishing donor participation in higher ed reflects “progress and risk,” Cunningham said. On the bright side, “more dollars from a smaller group of donors demonstrates how institutions have become effective at providing the inspiring opportunity for donors to invest in transformative acts of philanthropy.”
Then again, the decline in donor numbers, particularly among more recent alumni, “raises real concerns for the future support,” Cunningham said. “If institutions fail to engage with their communities in compelling and relevant ways, and clearly communicate the impact of engagement, today’s success could mask long-term vulnerability.” Or to put it another way, when today’s affluent donors eventually cede the stage, who, exactly, is going to take their place?
The shrinking of the donor pool also has concerning implications for institutional optics. It’s “good” for an organization — whether a university, global aid nonprofit, or community food bank — to derive support from a diverse group of donors because that underscores a cross-cutting endorsement of that organization’s mission. However, when a smaller segment of affluent individuals provides most of the funding, that ineffable sense of communal commitment can wane or become muddled, even if it doesn’t affect the organization’s day-to-day operations.
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When the Trump administration began cutting or suspending federal grants in early 2025, commentators wondered if donors would fill the gaps.
CASE’s report, as noted, accounted for gifts during the first five months, give or take, of Trump’s second term, so I was curious to see if researchers surfaced any telling correlations. As it turns out, they did, if only anecdotally.
“While philanthropy was never positioned as a way to ‘close the gap,’ many institutions aptly linked gifts to maintaining access, affordability and core functions of academic teaching and research — messages that resonated strongly, particularly from January to June 2025,” Cunningham said. “We also saw several institutions report receiving large, unexpected gifts.”
Cunningham shared her perspectives with me a day before investors, shrugging off the Iran war, propelled the S&P Index to an all-time high. A lot can happen in the next two months, but my (admittedly) low-risk prediction is that when we pore over CASE’s report next year, we’ll find that universities raised even more money than in this last fiscal year, thanks, once again, to the generosity of an ever-shrinking number of donors.
Of course, money isn’t magically going to raise itself. While a smaller group of donors contributes a growing share of universities’ collective fundraising haul, CASE’s report points to the importance of cultivating long-term relationships across the demographic spectrum. To this point, Cunningham cited CASE’s Insights on Alumni Engagement research, which calls on advancement professionals to deepen engagement with their supporters across multiple types of interactions with the institution: philanthropic, experiential, communications and volunteerism.
“Consistent communication, recognition, and other expressions of gratitude for their giving, volunteerism and other forms of civic and alumni engagement matter tremendously,” Cunningham said. “Those quieter signals of commitment often underpin future philanthropy.”
