DAFs Update: Anonymous Giving Study, COF Community Foundation Recommendations, OpEds

UPDATE: Fellow blogger Roger Colinvaux (Catholic) also responded to Katherine Enright’s OpEd discussed below, in a Letter to the Editor titled The Status Quo Is Not Acceptable When It Comes to Donor-Advised Funds. And as previously noted in this space, he has written an article on the ACE Act, Speeding Up Benefits to Charity: Donor Advised Fund and Foundation Reform, Boston College Law Review (forthcoming).

Even as we await congressional action on the Accelerating Charitable Efforts (ACE) Act, studies, recommendations, and dueling opeds continue to emerge.

In terms of studies, Howard Husock at the American Enterprise Institute has posted a recent study on anonymous giving through DAFs that makes these points:

• A review of grant data from the five largest sponsors of donor-advised funds—including the independent public charities, serviced by financial firms Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab—shows that anonymous grants comprise only 4.3 percent of all grants. It also shows that grants in the anonymous category that may include support for public policy matters include a small minority (12 percent) of that small group.

• Most anonymous giving supports well-known and noncontroversial organizations, including American Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and Salvation Army.

• Any regulation designed to limit anonymous giving risks discouraging charity by donors that may choose anonymity for various reasons, including fear of public criticism, unwanted solicitation, or religiously motivated reasons.

Coverage: Chronicle of Philanthropy (including criticism of the study; subscription required). At the same time, Hayden Ludwig at the Capital Research Center posted a short report critical of the Silicon Valley Foundation, titled The Gilded Left’s Favorite Bay Area Bankroller. 

The Council on Foundations’s Strengthening Community Philanthropy Ad Hoc Working Group also recently issued a set of recommendations for community foundations that hold donor-advised funds. The recommendations address the following issues:

• Standardizing Community Foundation Inactive Funds Policy
• Aggregate DAF Annual Distribution Requirement
• Private Foundation Distributions to Donor-Advised Funds
• Donation of Complex Gifts
• Expanding Charitable Giving

Finally, Katherine Enright of the Council of Foundations wrote an OpEd titled Donor-Advised Funds Are Essential to Democratizing Philanthropy, which led to a response from a former director development titled Donor-Advised Funds Don’t Pass the Democracy Smell Test. And at the Wall Street Journal, Jeremy D. Tedesco of the Alliance Defending Freedom wrote a commentary pushing back the Unmasking Fidelity movement titled Cancel Culture Targets Charity: Left-wing political activists want to destroy America’s long tradition of private philanthropy.

It seems the DAF debate is quickly becoming a vehicle for a number of political arguments and divides. 

Lloyd Mayer