> In 2024, charitable giving in the US was $592 billion. $392 billion of that was from individual donations.
That's a single-digit percentage of the US Federal budget.
Some of that goes to "family foundation" sinecures. Some of it goes to 10% church tithes. Quite a bit of it is spent onβ¦ raising funds. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/when-giving-to-charity-ask-wher... - "Of the more than $1.3 billion raised by charities in the [New York] in 2018, about $369 million β or 27% β went to pay professional fundraisers' fees")
> If 1% of our donations went to Ukraine, that's not a number to casually dismiss.
I think that's wildly optimistic, but that'd be somewhere between $3-5B. The US alone has earmarked something like $200B thus far. The EU has given a similar amount.
Every bit undoubtedly counts, but a single Patriot battery costs $1B.
The US is a rich and (despite all you may hear) generous country. If 1% of our donations went to Ukraine, that's not a number to casually dismiss.
Interestingly, $35 billion of that went to 'International affairs'. I would assume Ukraine was a significant part of that, but I don't know for sure.
https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2025-u-s-charitable-giving-...