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

On Giving Tuesday, the philanthropy world looks back on a landscape transformed by “reactionary giving” or “rage donations” after the 2016 election.

High-net-worth individuals are still cutting the biggest checks. Photo: Crystal Cox/Business Insider

By Juliana Kaplan

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…