Charities here and elsewhere across the United States might have experienced a mild “mood boost” in June when the Associated Press reported that, after an adjustment for inflation, charitable giving in 2024 was found to have been up by 3.3% over 2023.

But just as the busy “make-or-break” 2025 holiday shopping season is about to kick into high gear, perhaps that less-than-robust mood boost of five months ago might have to be replaced by a sense of caution more significant than any existing a year earlier.

Much volatility has impacted the business-industrial climate this year — the tariff issue being only one component of uncertainties that remain entrenched.

To what extent that volatility will have eroded people’s contributions to charities this year won’t be known, of course, until possibly mid-2026’s completion of the close scrutiny of 2025 giving is complete.

All that can be hoped for is justification for breathing a sigh of relief a half-year from now, hopefully with cause for significant optimism in place for a good 2026 report.

Unfortunately, hope is the only certainty currently available.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of volatility, especially in financial markets” was the opinion of Una Osili, an associate dean at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, as reported in a June 25 Mirror article that announced the 3.3% charitable giving increase of 2024. “When you’re not sure exactly what’s happening and the news is changing, that sometimes leads to donors just being uncertain and not acting. Uncertainty can dampen giving.”

It is to be hoped that a lower level of giving will not be the outcome of 2025, at least not here, considering local charities’ splendid work and positive results.

Hopefully, the new Season of Sharing fundraising campaign that got underway this month to benefit the nonprofit Dreams Go On Inc., will, if only in a small way, help to lead the way toward a stronger 2025 charitable giving report than 2024’s.

The proverbial storm clouds already on this side of the horizon cannot be ignored, however, such as federal worker job cuts, IBM’s move to eliminate thousands of jobs by year’s end, Hormel Foods’ elimination of 250 jobs and the Nov. 5 news reported by the Wall Street Journal under the headline “S&P 500 has worst day in weeks.”

“Companies broadly beat forecasts” was the headline at the top of the Journal’s Sept. 3 edition, but right under the headline was the message that cost-cutting was lifting earnings but wary shoppers and workers could be a warning.

“American companies are once again beating profit expectations, but this time around they aren’t banking on blockbuster consumer spending to make it happen,” said the article’s lead paragraph, followed by:

“Instead, the latest batch of quarterly earnings are getting a lift from managers squeezing out costs, boosting productivity and turning to new technologies.”

And, the fact must be faced that this new tactic in place carries with it the potential for lower charitable giving.

Still, the managing director for the organization Giving USA , Jon Bergdoll, is cautiously optimistic, noting that “the fundamentals of giving are still working like they historically have in the U.S.”

He said it is “important to take comfort in that we are still seeing the same things move and shift giving that 20 years ago moved and shifted giving.”

Hope that he is correct and that 3.3% number takes a big leap upward.

— Altoona Mirror