Fidelity Donors Gave $5.2 Billion in 2018, Up 17%

Donors at Fidelity Charitable, the largest provider of donor-advised funds, made $5.2 billion in grants to charities in 2018, a 17 percent increase over the previous year.

The nearly 1.3 million grants benefited 140,000 nonprofit organizations. Grant making in 2018 was the most ever by holders of Fidelity donor-advised funds, which allow people to open an account earmarked for philanthropy, receive a tax benefit for any contributions to the account, and later decide which charities will receive the money.

The new data echoes a similarly sunny report in late January from Schwab Charitable, which saw its donors recommend $2.2 billion in grants to charities last year, a 35 percent leap over 2017’s results.

In 2018, Fidelity donors made an average of just over 10 grants per account. That figure is nearly double the average grant-per-account figure in 2009.

Other findings:

• The organization reported 123,114 accounts in 2018, compared with 51,918 in 2009.
• Sixty percent of grant recommendations to charities were unrestricted.
• Impact investing is on the rise: Nearly $1 billion of money granted in 2018 went to such projects, a rise of 16 percent over 2017. Fidelity started three impact-investing pools last year.
• The top five charities that received support from Fidelity donors in 2018, in descending order: Doctors Without Borders, American Red Cross, Salvation Army, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.