Billion-dollar foundations paid out a median 5.1% in 2024, a report finds, as it calls for doubling the legal minimum
The Institute for Policy Studies released Gilded Giving 2026 on Sept. 15. It says the largest foundations' assets are growing faster than their grants, and asks for a 10% payout requirement for private foundations and a deadline of three to five years for donor-advised funds.
Washington. The 144 private foundations with $1 billion or more in assets paid out a median 5.1% of their assets in 2024, just above the 5% federal minimum, according to a report the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington research organization, released on Sept. 15.
The report, Gilded Giving 2026: Philanthropy Under Oligarchy, is the fifth in a series by the institute's Charity Reform Initiative. Drawing on tax returns filed with the IRS, its four authors argue that many major grantmakers have been more likely to accumulate assets or give in to political pressure than to pay for social movements.
Assets grow faster than grants
In the report's chart of billion-dollar foundations that filed returns every year from 2020 to 2024, assets grew 42%, from $420 billion to $597 billion, while grants rose from about $25 billion to $34 billion. Had the 121 billion-dollar foundations that paid out less than 10% in 2024 paid 10%, charities would have received $23.4 billion more, the authors estimate.
The report measures payout as a year's qualifying distributions over the value of a foundation's investment assets. The legal minimum, it notes, counts administrative costs, allows a year to make up a shortfall and lets excess distributions be carried forward for five years.
It says the Lilly Endowment of Indianapolis, now the country's largest foundation, paid out 3% in 2024 and reached 5% in 2025 for the first time since 2009. The endowment told the Ohio Capital Journal that it disagreed with that characterization, and that its required amount, set by a complex calculation, may be paid over two years.
“Lilly Endowment has always exceeded its required payout.”
Sponsors of donor-advised funds, which have no payout requirement, make up 11 of the 20 charities that receive the most contributions, the report says. Donor-advised funds and private foundations took in 38% of individual giving in 2024, and at the pace of the past five years would take in half by 2028.
What the report asks for
The authors ask Congress to raise the foundation minimum to 10%, which they estimate would send $66.3 billion more to charities in 2026, and to require donor-advised funds to pay out within three to five years of a gift. They also seek donor disclosure by every 501(c) organization and a $500 million lifetime cap on charitable deductions.
The report concedes that such changes are unlikely under the current federal government and asks foundations to pay out at least 10% on their own. Among funders giving faster, it names the Stupski Foundation, which plans to close in 2029, and the Marguerite Casey Foundation. The institute is a grantee of the Wallace Global Fund, whose investing the report presents as a model.
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