We're calling it a golden age of giving. It's really the Boomers' estate sale.

Dutch philanthropy just got called a "golden age." I'd read that claim carefully before anyone in the sector starts celebrating.

A giant report from the VU University recently came out: Geven in Nederland 2026. It is full of great analysis, forecasts and scientific insight on the state of the giving market in the Netherlands.

The part I want to point out today: people are giving a smaller share of their wealth almost every year. The growth the report is proud of comes from legacies, money left in wills. That is the engine under the optimism, and it points somewhere uncomfortable.

If you run a charity anywhere in the Western world, this is your report too. The Netherlands is one of the most generous, best-measured giving cultures on earth. When the warning lights come on here first, they are already on their way to you.

Before I go any further: I am not here to attack NGOs. I think they do some of the most important work on the planet, and I want them to win. That is exactly why the numbers worry me.

"The Golden Age" is a loaded phrase in the Netherlands for another reason. It is also the name we gave our richest historical era, a glorious label for a period whose wealth was largely taken from other people and places rather than built. I won't stretch the parallel too far. But the echo is hard to ignore: a golden age of giving whose growth comes from what people leave behind when they pass away, not from a living culture anyone is actually cultivating.

The report is honest about where the money comes from. Legacies grew 13% between 2022 and 2024, the fastest rise in the whole period the researchers have been tracking this data. Legacies now carry the optimism. Which means the sector is building its future on relationships with people who are, by definition, about to leave. Call that what it is: a countdown.

And to be fair to every fundraiser reading this: chasing legacies makes total sense. It is where the money sits and it will pay the bills well for years. I understand the pull completely. But if that is where the strategy stops, the outlook gets brutal. The people writing those wills will mostly be gone within ten to twenty years, and the generation meant to replace them has been given neither a reason nor a way to step in. Optimise only for legacies and you are buying a comfortable decade followed by a cliff.

What the numbers actually say#

In 2024 the Netherlands gave €5.49 billion to charity. That sounds healthy until you size it against the economy. As a share of GDP, giving peaked near 1.1% in 2003 and sits at 0.54% in 2024. It has roughly halved in twenty years. The euro figure looks flat; our generosity measured against our wealth has been sliding for two decades.

Companies tell the same story, faster. The share of businesses that give or sponsor at all fell from 61% before 2020 to 44% in 2024. Close to one in five simply stopped. Call it economic nerves, disappearing tax breaks, or the creeping belief that giving is a cost rather than a connection. Either way, a large part of the business community has walked away from the table.

And yet the Netherlands still has one of the highest giving-participation rates in Europe. More people give here than almost anywhere on the continent. The willingness is intact. What is shrinking is the amount, and the share of our wealth we are willing to part with. If you are reading this outside the Netherlands and assuming your country is different, check your own numbers first. You will probably find the same shape.

So the fault sits in the machinery, not in the people.

Why the machinery is failing#

Two things are draining giving, and neither is about generosity.

The first: the rails belong to the last century. Not long ago, a paper donation form from a cancer-research charity landed in my mailbox, asking me to open my banking app and send a quick one-time donation. The pitch was printed right at the top: "Donating is easy and safe. You give once, and you're tied to nothing."

Read that line again. The offer is a one-off transaction with no strings, which is another way of saying no relationship. Ask yourself honestly whether mass direct mail builds a bond with anyone. We both know the answer.

The second drain is that the sector courts the departing and ignores the arriving. Younger people give less, and the report is clear that it is not because they care less or trust charities less; it is mainly about their financial situation.

This is where I disagree.

Yes, funds are low with the new generation. But how cool or engaging is it to give to a non-profit nowadays? The new generation moved on to TikTok, Roblox and Snap, while non-profits still run their marketing and engagement campaigns like it's 2010. Part of it probably has to do with the fact that the average employee at a non-profit is 45+, but that is a whole other discussion.

The part the report barely touches#

There is a whole dimension the study skips, and it is where a lot of giving actually ends up: across borders. A large share of Western charities and foundations exist to move money to where it is scarce, to clinics in Africa, schools in Southeast Asia, communities the local economy will never reach. And governments are pulling back right now.

The Dutch are cutting development aid, and we all watched what happened to USAID. The gap these organisations were built to close is widening.

Yet moving a euro from a donor in Amsterdam to a project in rural Africa is still slow and expensive. Middlemen take a cut, days pass, and nobody downstream can see what arrived or when.

If we are serious about giving in a world of shrinking public aid, cross-border money has to move as easily as a message.

This is where stablecoins stop being a blockchain curiosity and start earning their place. Think of one as a euro that moves like an email: instant, global, near zero cost, and traceable at every step. Money that finally travels at the speed of the need, with each hop visible. The report describes a sector under pressure and leaves this tool entirely off the table.

What the sector has to do to stay relevant#

The fix is not a better campaign (now with AI!) or a sadder photo. It is structural. Three shifts.

First, modernise the rails. Money should move like information: instant, borderless, nearly free. Organisations that adopt modern payment and settlement infrastructure will do more with every euro than those still working the way they did in 2005.

Second, let people see where their money went. Forget transparency portals and audits for a moment. Start with the basic decency of showing a donor what happened next. If I can follow a €12 Vinted parcel across three countries in real time, I should be able to follow my donation at least that far. People do not only want to give. They want to see it land and do something. That visibility is where a relationship starts.

Third, trade transactions for relationships. The most valuable thing you can offer a donor, a person or a company, is the feasibility of what they funded and the impact they can actually see. Show them what changed. Keep them close. A giver who watches their money work is a giver who comes back, and brings others with them.

This is the bet we are making at OpenCharities: make the money trail visible, so a donor or a company can follow where their contribution went and see what happened next. Our first pilot, with a small group of charities and companies, starts this autumn.

The warning, and the invitation#

The warning: treat a twenty-year decline as a triumph and you will keep polishing the wrong thing until the countdown ends.

The invitation: companies are the clearest place to turn this around. One in five walked away from giving, and I don't think it is because they stopped caring. I think we stopped giving them a reason to see the point. If your company, or a company you know, wants to give in a way that delivers something real to the people inside it, visible and worth their attention, I want to talk to you. Let's co-design a pilot and show that giving can be built on the living, not the departing.