Philanthropy
Quantifying Jewish contributions to human progress, innovation, and the preservation of life
Philanthropy
In Hebrew the word for giving is tzedakah, from tzedek — justice. It is framed as an obligation owed, not a kindness offered, and the figures below are what that has looked like in practice.
$6.25 billion
pledged by Michael and Susan Dell on GivingTuesday 2025 to put $250 into the Trump Account of up to 25 million American children aged ten and under, in postcodes where the median income is below $150,000 — on top of the $1,000 the Treasury deposits for every child born from 2025 to 2028. They describe it as the largest single private commitment ever made to American children.
CNN Business and CNBC, 2 December 2025 · Heritage Florida Jewish News, 10 July 2026
12 of 25
of America's most generous givers in 2022 had Jewish backgrounds. The twenty-five gave $27 billion that year and $196 billion over their lifetimes.
Forbes, America's Most Generous Givers · The Times of Israel, 26 January 2023
≈ a third
of the Philanthropy 50 — the largest American donors of 2024, who gave $16.2 billion between them. Michael Bloomberg led the list with $3.7 billion.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Philanthropy 50 (2024)
$7 billion
given by Jewish donors in 1,017 separate gifts of a million dollars or more — 16% of all the megagift dollars given in the United States.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy
76%
of American Jewish households gave to charity, against 63% of households of other faiths or none.
Connected to Give — National Study of American Jewish Giving (2013)
$2,526
given per year by the average Jewish household, against $1,749 for Protestant households and $1,142 for Catholic ones.
Connected to Give (2013)
And almost all of it goes to everyone
The same surveys that count the giving also record where it lands. 92% of Jewish households give to non-Jewish causes; of the billions given in gifts of a million dollars and more, 9% went to Jewish organisations. The rest went to hospitals, universities, museums, medical research and disaster relief open to anyone who needs them.
There is no world total, and no honest way to produce one: nobody counts what Jewish donors give across every country. Every figure above is a published measurement with its source and its date.
Data Sources: Nobel Prize Foundation, World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control, Wolf Foundation, International Mathematical Union, Lasker Foundation, Columbia University
Updated: December 2024 • Statistics compiled from verified sources • Learn about our methodology