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The year in charitable giving

26 min episode · 2 min read
·
James Baratta,Gretchen Blau

Episode

26 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Investing, Fundraising & VC, Economics & Policy

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • Nonprofit fundraising patterns: Giving Tuesday 2025 generated $4 billion from 38 million donors, while one-third of annual charitable donations concentrate in December. Organizations like International Rescue Committee replaced millions in lost federal funding through increased private donations.
  • Tariff compliance complexity: Customs brokers faced overwhelming confusion managing multiple tariff categories including aluminum, brass, and wood, requiring detailed component breakdowns from customers unfamiliar with classification requirements. Logistics companies expanded staff to handle surging inquiry volumes from businesses navigating rate changes.
  • Public utility conversion process: Hudson Valley New York coalition seeks $15 million first-year savings through municipalization, growing to $200 million annually by year thirty. Conversion requires legislative approval and community stakeholder involvement, not government seizure, countering investor-owned utility opposition.
  • Immigration enforcement economic impact: Los Angeles car wash worker tracked 350 ICE detentions, with affected workers reducing hours from 48 weekly to one hour. Families shelter in place, halt major purchases, and require expanded food delivery services, mirroring COVID-19 economic patterns.

What It Covers

Marketplace examines 2025's charitable giving surge amid federal funding cuts, tariff implementation chaos, rising electricity costs driving public utility movements, and immigration enforcement creating pandemic-like economic conditions for Latino workers.

Key Questions Answered

  • Nonprofit fundraising patterns: Giving Tuesday 2025 generated $4 billion from 38 million donors, while one-third of annual charitable donations concentrate in December. Organizations like International Rescue Committee replaced millions in lost federal funding through increased private donations.
  • Tariff compliance complexity: Customs brokers faced overwhelming confusion managing multiple tariff categories including aluminum, brass, and wood, requiring detailed component breakdowns from customers unfamiliar with classification requirements. Logistics companies expanded staff to handle surging inquiry volumes from businesses navigating rate changes.
  • Public utility conversion process: Hudson Valley New York coalition seeks $15 million first-year savings through municipalization, growing to $200 million annually by year thirty. Conversion requires legislative approval and community stakeholder involvement, not government seizure, countering investor-owned utility opposition.
  • Immigration enforcement economic impact: Los Angeles car wash worker tracked 350 ICE detentions, with affected workers reducing hours from 48 weekly to one hour. Families shelter in place, halt major purchases, and require expanded food delivery services, mirroring COVID-19 economic patterns.

Notable Moment

A customs broker describes customers struggling to separate tariff components they never tracked before, with mailboxes overflowing and phones ringing constantly as businesses scrambled to understand which rates applied to different materials in single products.

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Episode Transcript

This podcast is supported by Odoo. Some say Odoo business management software is like fertilizer for businesses because the simple efficient software promotes growth. Others say Odoo is like a magic beanstalk because it scales with you and is magically affordable. And some describe Odoo's programs for manufacturing, accounting, and more as building blocks for creating a custom software suite. So Odoo is fertilizer, magic beanstalk building blocks for business. Odoo, exactly what businesses need. Sign up at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt, from renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds one of a kind index, and lets you back test it against the S and P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/marketplace and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/marketplace. Paid more by Public Investing. Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc, member FINRA, and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC registered adviser. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosure is available @public.comslashdisclosures. A look back on the year in giving and the biggest economic stories of the year, plus your money resolutions for the year ahead. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Washington DC, I'm Kimberly Adams in for Kai Risdall. It's Thursday, January 1. Happy New Year, and good to have you along. Yesterday wrapped up a big month for the nonprofit world. A third of all annual giving happens in December, and it was especially important last year for many nonprofits that lost federal funding due to Trump administration cuts. It's still too early for a complete picture of just how much private donations may have helped fill that gap, but here's one metric. On Giving Tuesday, one of the biggest fundraising days of the year, more than 38,000,000 people gave a record $4,000,000,000 to charities. Marketplace's Samantha Fields has more about the year in fundraising. At the beginning of 2025, it felt like everyone was in wait and see mode, at least to Erica Campbell at Second Harvest Heartland Food Bank in Minnesota. There was a lot of change, a lot of economic uncertainty, and we could really feel that in terms of our fundraising. Campbell runs fundraising for Second Harvest Heartland as its chief development officer. She says donations in 2025 stayed slow …

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  • by Odoo

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  • Organizations like International Rescue Committee replaced millions in lost federal funding through increased private donations.
  • Sponsors: The Exodus Road at theexodusroad.com/marketplace
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