Fidelity Charitable Account Holders Gave $3.5 Billion in 2016

People with accounts at Fidelity Charitable gave $3.5 billion in grants in 2016, a 12.9 percent increase over the $3.1 billion given the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday by the donor-advised fund giant.

The rate of growth was slower than the 19.2 percent uptick Fidelity registered in 2015 over the previous year.

The number of accounts held by Fidelity continues to grow. Last year, there were 90,164 accounts, a 12.4 increase over 2015.

When it raised $4.6 billion in 2015, Fidelity surpassed the United Way as the nation’s largest charity, when measured by the level of private support it received. It is the second largest grant maker, behind the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

At $4,200, the average grant made from a Fidelity account has remained fairly consistent since 2007, according to the organization. During that time, the average number of grants made from each account has increased from 6.2 to 9.3.

Number of Gifts Is Up

According to its own analysis, for every $100 someone contributes to a Fidelity donor-advised fund, $38 on average goes to charity within one year. Over five years, $74 of that $100 donation goes to charity.

The Fidelity figures are based on a “first-in, first-out” method of accounting, which assumes that donations made to an account are parceled out to charity in the order they are received.

Donor-advised funds have come under scrutiny because donors receive a charitable deduction when they give to their donor-advised fund, and unlike foundations, which must distribute 5 percent of assets each year, donor-advised funds have no such requirement. So it’s possible for money to accumulate indefinitely.

In the newly released report, Fidelity said that, using the first-in, first out accounting technique, the majority of money put into an account goes to charity within five years.

Other methods of accounting for payout, including those that foundations typically use, measure the level of grants and other expenses made against a grant maker’s total assets and can yield results that show lower percentages going to charity.

Among the other findings:

• The median balance at a Fidelity account is $15,961; most accounts have a balance less than $25,000.
• Sixty percent of contributions to Fidelity accounts came from noncash assets, including publicly traded securities (48 percent) and privately held assets (12 percent).
• Donors made 404 gifts of $1 million or more in 2016, up from 329 the year before.
• Nearly half of all grants were made to an organization the donor had supported in the past.
• Ninety-two percent of grants included the donor’s name and address.