Foundation giving in the United States is highly concentrated in a handful of states and cities, with nearly half of all grant dollars going to recipient organizations in New York, California, and Washington, D.C., a report from grants management software company Fluxx finds.

The report, State of Giving (12 pages, PDF), analyzed foundation grants totaling $3.6 billion facilitated through the Fluxx Grantmaker platform in 2018 to nonprofits and individuals in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The analysis found that recipient organizations in New York ($636.3 million), California ($550.7 million), and Washington, D.C. ($414.2 million) received nearly 45 percent of the grant dollars awarded nationally and 61 percent of the grant dollars awarded to organizations in the top ten states. The report also found that the top ten states — which include Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, Oregon, Colorado, and Maryland — received nearly $2.63 billion, or 73 percent of the total, compared with just $29.3 million, or 0.82 percent of the total, for the bottom ten, which include Puerto Rico, West Virginia, and Nebraska.

In addition, in the ten states that captured the most grant dollars, nearly half of those dollars went to education (45 percent), followed by the environment (17 percent), philanthropy (13 percent), arts and culture (9 percent), and community improvement (7 percent). By contrast, in the ten states/territory that captured the least funding, 50 percent of the grant dollars awarded went to housing and shelter, followed by education (9 percent), foreign affairs (9 percent), youth development (8 percent), and health care (8 percent).