Fidelity Charitable 2022 Giving Report
One-third of New Capital clients have Fidelity Charitable Donor Advised Funds, representing over $1.4 million dollars. In 2021, New Capital clients contributed over $225k into their DAF accounts and recommended over $380k in charitable donations.
Donor Community
Donors using the Giving Account to manage charitable giving at all levels. The median account balance increased slightly in 2021. Fueled by a continued bull run in the stock market, many account balances grew through donors’ investment recommendations - creating more funds available for granting.
Heightened Commitment
In another year marked by uncertainty, donors maintained a heightened commitment to giving. Fidelity Charitable surpassed 2 million donor-recommended grants totaling $10.3 billion.
These record-breaking results represent 41% more annual grant dollars than before the COVID-19 pandemic and 13% over 2020. Individual grants of $1 million or more grew to 1,180 last year, and increase of 10%
Donor Support
In the past decade, donors have become increasingly generous to their favorite causes - boosting both the volume and the size of their grant recommendations. Donors were particularly active in 2020 - recommending an average of 12.8 grants per account with an average size of $4,614. In 2021, that pace remained elevated, reflecting the continued urgency donors feel to do good. In total, 91% of Fidelity Charitable donor-advised funds made at least one grant in 2021.
Increased Charities
The number of charities that donors support has more than doubled in the past decade.
Donor support is broadly dispersed across a wide range of nonprofits that are diverse in size, geographic location, and charitable mission. Since inception, Fidelity Charitable has supported 357,000 distinct charities with donor-recommended grants.
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Donation Funding
In 2021, two-thirds of contributions were made in non-cash assets - which can help donors maximize capital gains tax advantages and potentially give more to charity.
While more charitable contributions in the United States are made in cash, checks, or credit cards, 66% of Fidelity Charitable contributions in 2021 were made in the form of more strategic non-cash assets - up from 54% a decade ago. Donating long-term appreciated securities directly to the charity may allow donors to eliminate capital gains taxes on the appreciation of the securities - allowing donors to give more than by selling the assets and donating the proceeds. Those tax savings become a direct source of funding for charitable causes.
Fidelity Charitable accepts a wide range of assets, including publicly traded securities (stocks, bonds and mutual funds) and non-publicly traded assets (private stock, restricted stock, and limited partnership interests).