The United States' Biggest Charities

With revenues of $23 billion in 2022, Lutheran Services in America tops the list of the highest-earning nonprofits in the United States, according to an analysis by Forbes. The network of 300 Lutheran organizations is one of only three nonprofits bringing in more than $10 billion annually, as our chart shows.

The other two are health organizations, namely the Mayo Clinic and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, with revenues of roughly $20 billion and $11 billion, respectively. Notably, four of the top 8 nonprofits are connected to the healthcare sector, the third and fourth entrants being Mount Sinai Health Systems and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Other entrants in the list are the youth organization YMCA of the USA, Goodwill Industries, which offers community-based programs re-integrating people with barriers to employment and is funded by more than 3,000 thrift stores, and the Salvation Army, a Protestant church and the United States' most important non-governmental social services provider. Many of these organizations' charitable intent is aimed at the general public as well as their top executives. For example, in 2021, the CEO of New York-Presbyterian Hospital was compensated with an estimated $12.4 million.

While many charities rely on private donations, many of the top earners are mostly independent of citizens' support. Instead, possible major funding avenues are the government, service fees or, as mentioned above, sales from their thrift stores. According to data aggregated by social sector data provider Candid, there were 1.8 million nonprofits registered in the U.S. in 2021, with 1.4 million public charities alone.