Grants to charities from Fidelity Charitable increased 29 percent in 2013, Fidelity Charitable announced today.

Grants to not-for-profits increased to $2.1billion last year from $1.6 billion in 2012.

Fidelity Charitable, an independent public charity with a donor-advised fund program, made 518,000 grants on behalf of its donors last year. The average grant rose 6 percent to more than $4,000, boosted in part by a 47-percent increase in the number of grants of $1 million or more, Fidelity says.

Human services, religion and education ranked among the top sectors to receive grants in both the number of grants and total dollars.

Donors contributed $3.6 billion to Fidelity Charitable in 2013, which was on par with contributions in 2012. One difference in 2013 was the percentage of contributions that came in the form of publicly traded and non-publicly traded appreciated assets, such as stocks, mutual funds and other capital assets. Appreciated assets accounted for 62 percent of all contributions, up from 54 percent in 2012.

There was also a 20-percent increase in the number of new donor-advised funds established, with the median size of the new accounts being $13,000.