'Reactionary giving' was all the rage from the 'Trump bump' after 2016 — but the coronavirus has changed giving like everything else

• Today is Giving Tuesday, which is devoted to charitable giving.
• Like everything else in 2020, giving is a little bit different this year.
• The general pattern of "reactionary giving" around elections, turbocharged in the Trump era, coincided with pandemic-related giving, both bolstered by smaller donors.
• In 2016, contributions to liberal nonprofits increased by 155%, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, versus a more typical 57% or so.
• In 2020, giving dipped at the start of the year, but picked up by 7.5% in the second quarter — while politicians broke fundraising records.

After the 2016 election, people began to open their wallets in a new way. It's what the Chronicle of Philanthropy calls the "Trump Bump."

Donations poured in to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). As the Chronicle reported, many of the donations came from first-time givers, or "rage donors," a phenomenon also called "reactionary giving."

Post-election, nonprofits from the losing party generally see a spike in contributions, according to the Chronicle. Donations to liberal nonprofits went up by 155% following Donald Trump's victory, a huge increase even in the realm of reactionary giving. The Chronicle found that, on average, the losing party's nonprofits see a 57.55% bump in contributions; in 2008, after Obama's victory, conservative nonprofits saw contributions grow by 23%.

As GQ's Ashley Fetters wrote in 2017: "Welcome to the age of the rage-donation, the act of feverishly throwing money at a cause you believe in because you just don't know what the hell else to do."

In between election years, the question was whether these new donors would stick around.

There was indeed some drop-off, with only 20% of those one-time donors still giving in 2019, according to a report from Giving USA. But 60% of 2017's reactionary "sustainer" donors — who had committed to donating at any frequency — stuck around, and were still donating in 2019.

Even in early 2020, before the pandemic hit, nonprofits were preparing for reactionary giving from the fallout of November's result.

On the whole, more than half of charities expected donations to drop in 2020, according to a July survey from the Association of Fundraising Professionals, but an October report found that giving actually increased in the second quarter of 2020, with a 19.2% uptick in donations under $250, and new donors increasing by 12.6%.

But, in a year like no other, the tenor of giving was changed, too.

Record-breaking donations and political fundraising

Donations during the coronavirus pandemic broke disaster philanthropy records, according to an August report from Candid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP). Of the $11.9 billion donated, almost two-thirds — about $7.9 billion — came from corporate giving. Google led the charge, giving more than $1.2 billion.

There was still some inequity in that giving. Only about 5% of funds were explicitly given to people of color and their communities — all while BIPOC remain disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

Political fundraising also rose to new highs; as The New York Times reported, the 2020 campaign was the most expensive one America's seen. "Small-dollar donors" — who gave less than $200 — were particularly significant.

President-elect Joe Biden continually broke fundraising records during his campaign. Other Democrats also made history, with South Carolina's Jaime Harrison raising a record-breaking $57 million in his campaign against Lindsey Graham.

It's still unclear what a "Biden bump" will look like, but, as Eden Stiffman reports for the Chronicle, the contentiousness of the 2020 election could work out in liberal nonprofits' favor.

As Stiffman writes: "The more unexpected the election outcome, the greater the gap between liberal and conservative contribution levels."

One person in particular appears to have benefited from 2020's version of the "Trump bump": Donald Trump himself. The outgoing president's campaign has raised at least $150 million in relation to his challenges of the election he lost. Most of that money will go toward a PAC that will fund Trump's post-2020 political aspirations, and maybe a 2024 run that could touch off another round of reactionary giving.