Questions Mount Over $14 Trillion Flowing Through NGOs

Alexander Muse – The Federal Reserve recently disclosed a figure that should stop any serious observer of American public life in his tracks. As of Q2 2025, U.S. NGOs hold $14.12T in assets. That balance sheet is larger than the combined 2025 GDP of Japan, Germany, and India by roughly 5%.

This is not a slogan or a talking point. It is a fact drawn from the Federal Reserve’s own Financial Accounts. One can dispute how the assets are distributed or how actively they are deployed, but the magnitude itself is no longer debatable. A sector of formally private, tax-exempt institutions now commands wealth on a scale normally associated with great powers.

At first glance, this may seem unremarkable or even reassuring. NGOs are, after all, associated in the public imagination with soup kitchens, disaster relief, medical missions, and conservation. Many Americans have given to such causes in good faith. The legal framework that grants nonprofits tax exemption emerged from precisely this moral intuition. The state steps back, refrains from taxing donations and endowments, and civil society steps forward to meet human needs that markets or governments address poorly. For much of the 20th century, this bargain worked tolerably well. Continue reading →