The editor reflects on how the world of giving is affected when a major wealth creation event – such as a launch of a rocketry, satellite and engineering company – takes place.

There are many forces propelling people to give to philanthropy. Sometimes the jolt comes from a sudden liquidity event that even if it was planned for, still concentrates the mind when it becomes reality.

Liquidity events don’t come more spectacular than the initial public offering of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket launch business that made him a trillionaire and enriched thousands of employees. According to the New York Times and investment platform Hill.com, about 4,000 to 4,000 staff at the firm were made millionaires. (SpaceX has a total of about 22,000 employees.) SpaceX stock rocketed – excuse the pun – from an initial price of $135 per share to about $160 shortly after listing. However, the price has declined by about 30 per cent since. (See an analysis of liquidity issues around the IPO here.)

To pick out one example of what an IPO can do to mint HNW individuals, a former welder, Juan Hernandez, saw his roughly 6,500 shares cross the $1 million mark on the first trading day, while longer-tenured staff like an intern-turned-employee since 2011 ended up with holdings worth around $16 million. Reports also note an upper tier of around 400 people expected to net $100 million or more.

To a degree, the SpaceX IPO adds to the growth of wealth tracked – as shown below – by the likes of Capgemini in its annual World Wealth Report. There are more resources for philanthropy. 

With major liquidity events, there is no need to move fast.

“One piece of practical advice I give to newly liquid families is to resist the urge to rush,” Adrienne Hart, head of philanthropy, Rockefeller Global Family Office, told Family Wealth Report in an interview. “There are various tax strategies that are important to consider before and immediately after a transaction, but there is also value in taking time to think through longer-term intentions beyond tax efficiency. 

“Entrepreneurs spend years focused on building and operating a business. Following a liquidity event, philanthropy can be a meaningful entry point into a greater conversation about what comes next, what matters most, and how they want to deploy their time, capital, and energy going forward," she said. 

While shares are relatively liquid assets – they still come with features that raise complexities above and beyond cash. And as a wealthy person – perhaps the owner and inheritor of an operating company – thinks of philanthropy, it raises the need for specialist advice.

Jason Watt, charitable strategist, DAFgiving360, focuses on gifts of complex non-cash assets, such as real estate, cryptos, and operating companies. It is a complex area and increasingly busy, he said. Even farms are involved and farmers can gift assets such as crops into a charity. 

“There seems to be a big increase in the awareness of the use of non-cash giving in charitable goals,” Watt told FWR. “I am fielding calls about gifts of real estate on a weekly basis.”

Sometimes children aren’t interested in inheriting family property, which explains why some families prefer to gift real estate to a charity, he said. 

With operating companies, the US is in the middle of a massive intergenerational wealth transfer. At DAFgiving360, Watt and colleagues spend time on the due diligence on companies and the whole review process can be completed within three to five days. For example, this involves understanding a business’s operating governance; financial statements; its structure; tax exposures that could affect a charity.

More than writing a check
The conversation about what happens when new wealth is created happens at a time when philanthropy is shifting in what have been volatile times. As explained to FWR a few weeks ago by Citi Wealth, there is much more to the field than handing over money.

Broader data adds to the picture of a rising tide of millionaires – and philanthropic firepower.

According to Capgemini's 2026 World Wealth Report, North America's HNW population grew by 9.1 per cent in 2025, making it one of the strongest-performing regions globally, just behind Asia-Pacific's 10.5 per cent gain. Within North America, the US accounted for most of the gain: its HNWI population expanded 9.2 per cent.

Tracking how much philanthropy goes on is not easy, and there appears to be a bit of discrepancy in data. One way of getting an idea is looking at two major channels of donor-advised funds and private foundations. 

The Annual DAF Report 2025 (from the DAF Research Collaborative, updated spring 2026, covering the 2024 financial year) puts the total number of DAF accounts in the US at a record 3.59 million. That report attributes much of the jump to a rise in accounts held at donation processors (platforms like workplace-giving or fintech-based giving apps), which now account for a large share of the total. Alongside that, total DAF assets were $327.87 billion, contributions into DAFs were $90.57 billion, and grants out of DAFs were $64.60 billion. By contrast, National Philanthropic Trust's 2024 DAF Report (covering fiscal year 2023, the traditional benchmark most people cite) reported a much lower figure – 1,782,281 accounts, with $251.52 billion in charitable assets. 

As for private foundations, data suggests there are 150,000 private foundations in the US, but some estimates give a lower amount, and exact figures on assets are difficult to pin down. 

Values and goals
Rockefeller’s Hart says a liquidity event will affect how families think about philanthropy in various ways. 

“As families begin thinking about charitable giving on a greater scale, the conversation often centers on questions about tax strategy, charitable vehicles, and structure. While those are important considerations, the most effective philanthropic strategies are often grounded in a clear understanding of what role philanthropy is intended to play in a donor’s life, family, and broader expression of values and priorities.

“For HNW and UHNW families, that question of what role philanthropy will play is particularly important in the context of a major liquidity event, because charitable planning tends to coincide with broader decisions around wealth transfer, tax strategy, family governance, and succession planning,” she said. 

A key consideration is to focus on the goals of giving, not to be led by tax mitigation strategies, Hart continued. 

“Another common pitfall is to underestimate the associated governance challenges that follow a liquidity event. Following the sale of a business, families are often looking for ways to maintain a shared sense of purpose, especially if the family business historically served as their unifying force,” Hart said.

The topics Hart raises also address a topic this publication has explored before: The increasingly complex role of the philanthropy advisor. Those who work with wealthy families must help them translate values into action, engage different generations, all the while guarding their reputations and privacy. 

“If structured properly, [philanthropy] has the power to provide a forum for family members to discuss values, make decisions together, learn stewardship, and engage younger generations in a meaningful way,” Hart said. “For many families, philanthropy becomes one of the first opportunities for the next generation to participate in wealth-related decision-making. Without proper structure, this opportunity has the potential to lead to family discord rather than engagement.”

Cryptos and giving
DAFgiving360’s Watt raised a topic that shows how the digital age plays into conversations. He talked about crypto giving. 

“I tend to see people who are a bit older than you would assume [about crypto giving], such as 40 years or older. The motivating factors are mostly the same [as with other assets] seeking to address diversification. Tax incentives are motivations,” he said.

And cryptos bring certain considerations. 

“A gift of cryptocurrency to a donor-advised fund or other public charity is not recognized by the IRS as a gift of currency. For tax purposes, cryptocurrencies are treated as capital assets or income, depending on whether the cryptocurrency was held for investment purposes or received as a form of compensation,” Watt said. “If the asset was held as an investment for more than one year and a donor itemizes deductions, they may deduct the fair market value (as determined by a qualified appraisal) of the gift, up to 30 per cent of your adjusted gross income (AGI) with a five-year carryover. To substantiate a charitable income tax deduction, donors are required to complete Form 8283 and obtain a qualified appraisal from a qualified appraiser for contributions of cryptocurrency valued at more than $5,000."

DAFs or foundations?
As referred to above, DAFs constitute a large sector. They come with “pros” – immediate deduction and flexible timing, and they are easy in administrative terms – an important consideration. On the “cons” side, fees can be layered on top of underlying management costs and there is not the level of control comparable to a private foundation.

Mark Parthemer, chief wealth strategist at Glenmede, told FWR about the upsides and downsides of these models. There is no right or wrong here – much will depend on what a person wants to achieve.

Explaining the positive side, Parthemer said that with a DAF, a donor claims the charitable deduction in the year assets are contributed to the fund, then recommends grants to specific charities over time, decoupling the tax event from the giving decision.

“That timing flexibility lets a donor bunch several years' worth of giving into one high-income year to clear the itemization threshold, then grant the funds out gradually in later years while still taking the standard deduction. That is why DAFs appear in so many year-end tax-planning conversations: they are one of the rare charitable strategies that reward good timing as well as good intentions,” he said.

“The One Big Beautiful Bill Act adds a new wrinkle starting in 2026. Charitable contributions must exceed 0.5 per cent of adjusted gross income before any of them count toward the itemized deduction, and top-bracket taxpayers also face a cap on the value of itemized deductions. A donor who bunches several years of giving into a single contribution is more likely to clear that floor meaningfully; a donor giving the same total in smaller annual increments may lose part of the deduction to the floor each year. The bunching strategy DAFs were already good at just became more important in determining whether OBBBA-era giving is tax-efficient,” he said.

On the administrative simplicity point, Parthemer said that a sponsoring organization for a DAF handles recordkeeping, grant vetting, and tax filings, sparing the donor the governance and compliance burden that comes with running a private foundation. “For many time-strapped donors, that is the whole pitch: philanthropy with the paperwork outsourced. A private foundation means its own legal entity, a board, minimum distribution requirements enforced by excise tax penalties, an annual 990-PF filed publicly, and often a hired staff or outside administrator just to keep the lights on. A DAF donor skips all of it – no entity to form, no board to convene, no public filing with the donor's name on it, no annual distribution requirement to track. The sponsoring organization absorbs that entire back office,” he said.

But there are problems with DAFs, he said.

“Sponsoring organizations often charge an administrative fee in addition to investment management fees on the underlying assets, a drag some donors do not fully account for at the outset,” Parthemer said. “At many large national sponsors, administrative fees begin around 0.60 per cent annually, often with a flat minimum and tiered schedules that step down as the balance grows – so a $1 million account may still carry several thousand dollars of annual administrative cost before a dollar reaches a charity, though the effective rate often drops as breakpoint pricing applies.

“Investment expenses are separate and vary, sometimes adding only a few basis points and sometimes materially more. None of it is disclosed as a single number; it shows up as separate line items that many donors never add together. The pivot point is time: this matters most for donors treating a DAF as a long-term holding vehicle rather than a pass-through. The longer assets sit, the more those layered fees compound, quietly trimming what eventually reaches a charity,” he said.

As for the long-standing debate on the merits and drawbacks of private foundations, Parthemer said that a DAF donor recommends grants but cannot direct them, and the sponsoring organization retains final approval, a meaningfully different level of control than a private foundation offers its founder.

“This is not a matter of a DAF lacking structure – many sponsoring organizations let a donor name successor advisors across generations, set up an advisory committee, or otherwise build something that looks and feels like family governance. What does not transfer, no matter how much structure is layered on, is legal control: the sponsoring organization owns the assets and holds final say over every grant, a line no amount of committee-building crosses. This is where the planning conversation turns from tax efficiency to governance,” he added.

With IPOs and other events minting fresh wealth, it is plain that for those looking at philanthropy as a destination for some of those riches, the journey is not a simple one.