DAF Advantage

“From an individual donor’s point of view, they’re great,” said Ray Madoff, a professor of trusts and estates at Boston College Law School in Massachusetts. DAFs give well-off donors the control and autonomy of a private foundation, allowing them to choose where and when the money goes, while also providing the larger tax benefits of a public charity.

Four of the top 10 charities are DAFs, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s ranking of the top 400. Fidelity Charitable, an affiliate of Boston-based Fidelity Investments, took stewardship of $3.7 billion in 2013, and contributions grew 57 percent in the first nine months of 2014, positioning it to oust United Way as the country’s wealthiest charity.

Basic-needs aid organizations are feeling a lack of generosity in their ground campaigns, even as the occasional Christmas miracle keeps spirits lifted.

Holiday Giving

People tend to give most between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. In 2013, 33.6 percent of the year’s total donations were made in the last three months, according to Charleston-based non-profit software and services provider Blackbaud Inc.

In Bloomington, Minnesota, $10,000 in cash was anonymously stuffed into a red kettle at a Lunds grocery store the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The gesture didn’t catch the attention of the volunteer manning the Salvation Army station. As he swung his bell at passersby, one of them -- or maybe a few working in concert -- deposited 10 folded packets of as many $100 bills.

It was probably the same mystery benefactor from years past, Julie Borgen, a Salvation Army spokeswoman, said. The donor, dubbed “Saint Grand” for a series of $1,000 donations, has dropped an estimated $60,000 into kettles in the Twin Cities area since 2011.

‘Saint Grand’

Saint Grand’s generosity did little to make up for the decline in kettle donations, Borgen said. With $1.44 million raised from Nov. 8 through last week, the Twin Cities branch has a ways to go to meet its $3.4 million Christmas Eve target, and is about $185,000 behind where it was at the same time last year.