July 20, 2016 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Donor-advised funds at Fidelity Charitable gave $1.6 billion to nonprofits during the first half of 2016, a 14 percent increase over the same period last year, according to a figures released Tuesday.
Account holders made more than 330,000 grants in the first half of the year, an 8 percent increase over the same period last year. The number of accounts with Fidelity also jumped, to 82,539, up 3 percent from the end of 2015.
Fidelity also released results for its 2016 fiscal year, which ended June 30: Total grants reached $3.3 billion, a 15 percent increase over the previous year.
Fidelity donors made more than 750,000 grants in fiscal 2016, averaging nine grants per account. The average grant size was $4,300.
More than $23.4 billion dollars has been granted by the charity’s accounts since its founding in 1991, and Fidelity officials are encouraging more grant making in an effort to push the total over the $25 billion mark by the end of year, according to a Fidelity news release. That would peg average grant making at $1 billion a year from Fidelity funds since the charity’s establishment.
2nd Largest Grant Maker
Donor-advised funds allow people to get immediate tax benefits for putting cash, stocks, real estate, and other assets into an account that will be used to make charitable donations.
The number of accounts held with Fidelity and other charities has grown massively over the past two decades, as Fidelity Charitable has become second-largest grant maker in the nation behind the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the second-largest charity by private support raised, behind United Way Worldwide.
Fidelity reported more than $3.8 billion in private support raised in 2014, the most recent year for which figures are available.
Schwab Charitable, the second-largest provider of donor-advised funds, reported this month that its account holders gave $1.2 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, up 12 percent from the previous year. It raised nearly $1.9 billion in 2014, the most recent year for which figures are available.
