Despite economic and societal disruptions, charitable giving to the Arts, Culture, and Humanities sector tends to increase over time—especially when measured in current dollars.

Yet recession, the stock market, inflation, socio-political disruptions and other factors may influence whether it progresses a lot, a little, or declines. Click on the tabs below to see how charitable giving to Arts, Culture, and the Humanities has behaved historically given different economic and social conditions.

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Sources:

Charitable Giving
Giving USA 2026: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the year 2025. Researched and written by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Published by the Giving USA Foundation, a public service initiative of the Giving Institute.

Recessions
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JHDUSRGDPBR

Inflation
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA
https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/07/06/historical-parallels-to-todays-inflationary-episode/

S&P
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/.INX:INDEXSP?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiSq8aBken4AhUcHjQIHSWQB64Q3ecFegQIFxAY

CPI
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator/consumer-price-index-1913-

Presidential elections
https://advisor.morganstanley.com/the-ernie-garcia-group/documents/field/e/er/ernie-garcia-group/S%26P%20500%20in%20Presidential%20Election%20years.pdf

Corporate pre-tax profits
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A053RC1Q027SBEA

Socio-economic
Bank of America Capital Market Outlook

Unemployment
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE

GDP
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP