France

Introduction to Philanthropy Research in France

By Lucy Pfliger and Arthur Gautier

Research on philanthropy in France has expanded considerably in recent years. It combines two complementary strands: the production of large datasets and descriptive statistics by nonprofit organisations, professional associations and public authorities, and academic research using scientific methods and theory to examine philanthropic behaviour, institutions and social effects.

Nonprofit organisations and the statistical departments of several ministries are the principal producers of large-scale data. France générosités, the professional association representing organisations that collect donations from the public, and the Philanthropy Observatory of Fondation de France jointly publish the Panorama national des Générosités. First launched in 2018, this collaborative study integrates several national data sources to estimate donations from private actors to associations, foundations, public institutions and other eligible organisations.

Tax records are the most reliable source of information on giving by individuals and corporations. In 2024, the Direction Générale des Finances Publiques published a major study using national tax data on individual and corporate giving between 2011 and 2021. These administrative records provide detailed information on declared donations, although relatively little is known about donors beyond basic household and income characteristics.

The Institut National de la Jeunesse et de l’Éducation Populaire, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Education, also conducts national surveys on participation in nonprofit organisations and charitable giving. The latest survey follows an earlier national study conducted in 2010. Private organisations have produced additional surveys, but these are generally considered less reliable than administrative data and nationally coordinated statistical research.

No single public authority is responsible for coordinating all French philanthropy data. Information is produced by several ministries, nonprofit associations and research organisations, which makes it difficult to create one fully comprehensive and consistent estimate of philanthropic giving.

Academic philanthropy research is broad and multidisciplinary. Since 2011, ESSEC Business School has hosted a Philanthropy Chair dedicated to research, teaching and knowledge dissemination. Its work is grounded primarily in management and the social sciences and is supported by several major French foundations.

The Philanthropy & Social Sciences Program was established in 2018 as a collaborative network for empirical and multidisciplinary research. In 2024, the French National Centre for Scientific Research designated the programme a strategic priority. French philanthropy research now includes history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, psychology and management.

Important areas of research include the history of nineteenth-century philanthropy, religious giving, the influence of American philanthropy in Europe, the sociology and philosophy of the gift, philanthropy’s relationship with poverty and democracy, tax incentives, donor motivations, nonprofit marketing, corporate philanthropy and impact investing. The recurring Le Paysage Associatif Français study also provides extensive descriptive information on the nonprofit sector and charitable giving.

Overview of Giving in France

Giving by individuals

The most detailed information on declared individual giving comes from household tax returns. Donations can be reported under the income-tax system and, for eligible organisations, under the wealth-tax system. Only donations qualifying for tax deductions are included.

In 2022, 5.534 million households declared at least one charitable donation, with total declared giving of €3.632 billion. Donations to organisations serving the public interest represented 68% of this amount. The mean declared donation across giving households was €656.

Approximately 2.179 million households donated €711 million to organisations helping people in need. Religious organisations received €198 million from 666,000 households, political parties received €63 million from 188,000 households, and organisations based elsewhere in the European Union received €95 million from 240,000 households.

Around 33,000 households declared donations under the wealth tax, with total giving of €203 million. The average wealth-tax donation was €6,152, considerably higher than the average donation declared under the income-tax system.

Tax records do not include giving by households that are not liable for income or wealth tax, donations to organisations that cannot issue tax receipts, donations in kind, checkout round-ups or eligible donations that donors choose not to declare.

Additional giving is estimated from the accounts of prominent nonprofit organisations. In 2022, 35 fundraising campaigns operated by 29 organisations without issuing tax receipts raised an estimated €456 million. Combining this with tax-declared giving produces an estimated €4.088 billion in lifetime donations by individuals.

Bequest giving

France has no centralised database of charitable bequests. The most reliable information comes from the published financial accounts of recipient organisations. These records identify the amount received by organisations but generally do not reveal the number of individual testators or the average value of each bequest.

A sample of 371 nonprofit organisations received an estimated €1.192 billion in bequests in 2022. Education and research organisations received €375 million, representing 31% of the total. Religious, health and social-action organisations each received approximately 15%, while environmental and animal-related organisations received €111 million, or 9%.

Public organisations also receive donations and bequests. In 2022, territorial and other public bodies received approximately €79.1 million in identified bequests. Combined with the nonprofit-sector estimate, total charitable bequests were approximately €1.271 billion.

Corporate giving

Corporate tax returns provide the most accurate national data on declared corporate philanthropy. Companies declare the tax deduction to which they are entitled rather than the underlying donation amount, so total giving must be calculated from the applicable rates and thresholds.

In 2022, approximately 142,500 companies reported at least one donation, representing around 6% of all French companies. Their declared donations were estimated at €2.65 billion, with a mean donation of €18,596.

More detailed information for 2020 indicates that international and domestic aid organisations received 32% of categorised corporate giving. Corporate foundations received 28.6%, health organisations 10.3%, education and research 7.9%, culture 7.1%, and sport and recreation 3.2%. These figures cover only part of total corporate philanthropy.

Tax data do not capture all corporate donations. Some companies cannot fully benefit from the tax incentive, while others do not disclose giving because of personal values or reputational considerations. A survey of companies with more than ten employees estimated that 65% of their donations were declared to the tax authorities.

On this basis, undeclared corporate giving was estimated at €1.207 billion in 2022. Total corporate philanthropy was therefore approximately €3.857 billion.

Foundations

Information on foundations is drawn from published financial statements, administrative records and the National Survey on Foundations and Endowment Funds conducted by the Philanthropy Observatory. The survey has been repeated since 2001 and covers eight different legal forms of foundations and endowment funds.

The 2022 survey analysed the 2021 accounts of 3,060 organisations, representing approximately 59% of all French foundations and endowment funds. It includes information on assets, expenditure, employment, legal status, operating model, supported causes, governance and geographical distribution.

Foundations may operate their own institutions and services, such as hospitals, museums or retirement homes, or act as grantmakers supporting projects implemented by other organisations. Some combine both models.

Approximately 5,388 foundations were active in France in 2022, with total expenditure estimated at €16 billion. These expenditures cannot be added to total philanthropic giving because the available accounts do not distinguish between income from endowments and donations previously made by individuals or corporations. Including foundation spending would therefore create substantial double counting.

In 2021, 25% of foundations were active in social action, 19% in education and research, 19% in culture, 15% in health and 8% in environmental and animal-related causes.

Among 502 responding foundations, social action accounted for €5.828 billion, or 39.6% of expenditure, while health accounted for €4.790 billion, or 32.5%. Education and research received €2.102 billion, or 14.3%, and culture received €516 million, or 3.5%.

Charity lotteries

France has no large-scale independent charity lotteries. The national lottery operator, La Française des Jeux, was largely privatised in 2019, but lottery and betting profits are not systematically distributed to nonprofit organisations.

The principal exception is the Loto du Patrimoine, a special annual lottery established in 2018 to support endangered heritage sites. Because France has no broader system of private charity-lottery distributions, this source is not included in the national estimate of philanthropy.

Sources of Contributions in France

Total donations in France were estimated at €9.216 billion in 2022, equivalent to approximately 0.35% of gross domestic product. The estimate combines declared and identified undeclared individual donations, charitable bequests, and declared and estimated undeclared corporate giving.

The estimate is conservative. With the exception of undeclared corporate giving, no national extrapolation was applied. Tax records exclude donations that are not declared or tax deductible, while estimates of other individual donations and bequests cover only samples of recipient organisations.

French philanthropy benefits from extensive tax records, major sector-wide data initiatives and a broad academic research community. Nevertheless, responsibility for data collection remains dispersed, and no single institution provides a complete overview of giving. Better coordination between public authorities, professional associations, nonprofit organisations and academic researchers would further strengthen the national evidence base.

Source

Pfliger, L., & Gautier, A. (2026). Philanthropy in France. In B. Hoolwerf & J. Vamstad (Eds.), Philanthropy in Europe: Mapping Research and Data on Donations by Households, Bequests, Foundations, Corporations and Charity Lotteries (pp. 93–108). European Research Network on Philanthropy.

You can download the full publication here: Philanthropy in Europe.