2018 Donor-Advised Fund Report

The National Philanthropic Trust recently published is 12th annual report on donor advised funds:

OUR 2018 DONOR-ADVISED FUND REPORT examines 2013 through 2017 fiscal year data from 1,002 charities. For the eighth consecutive year, there was growth in all key metrics—number of individual donor-advised funds, total grant dollars from them, total contributions to them and total charitable assets in them.

In 2017, there were 463,622 individual donor-advised funds across the country. Donors contributed $29.23 billion to these donor-advised funds and used them to recommend $19.08 billion in grants to qualified charities. Both grants and contributions reached record highs. Charitable assets in donor-advised funds totaled $110.01 billion, surpassing the $100 billion mark for the first time.

While these record-breaking totals are significant, the rates of change are even more interesting. For example, grants from donor-advised funds to qualified charities increased nearly 20 percent from 2016 to 2017, a faster rate of growth than almost every year prior. Contributions rose 16.5 percent in that same time, which is a healthy rate of growth, but slower than the prior year.

What our previous reports predicted and what I’ve observed is that donors who create donor-advised funds are actively making grants. We see that through the growth in grants to donors’ favorite charities. The simultaneous growth in contributions indicates that this pattern will continue.

–TLH