Donor-advised philanthropy broke records during 2019 and the first six months of the pandemic in 2020, according to the National Philanthropic Trust’s recently released 2020 Donor-Advised Fund Report and Donor-Advised Fund COVID Grantmaking Survey.
Published annually as a public service since 2006, the Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) Report primarily uses data from IRS Form 990 filings to provide the most up-to-date and reliable analysis of the DAF market. The 2020 report examined 993 charitable organizations that sponsor donor-advised funds, including national charities, community foundations and other sponsoring charities.
The study found that even before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the value of grants from DAF accounts to qualified charities totaled $27.37 billion in 2019, a 15.4% increase from $23.72 billion in 2018.
The Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) COVID Grantmaking Survey, unlike the DAF Report of 2019 charitable giving, was conducted among 13 DAF sponsors using self-reported data at the end of 2020. Collectively, the group represents just under 50% of total DAF charitable grant dollars annually and includes national charities and community foundation DAF sponsors.
The analysis is the first sector-wide review of grantmaking from DAFs to charities in response to Covid-19, during January 1-June, 30, 2020, as compared to same six-month time frame in 2019.
The National Philanthropic Trust (NPT) found that the number of DAF grants in all eight charitable subsectors increased, with Human Services up 78%; Public/Societal Benefit up 58%; International up 42%; Environment/Animal Welfare up 31%; Health up 30%; Arts and Culture up 29%; Religion up 26%; and Education up 11%.
The value of DAF grantmaking to qualified charities reached $8.32 billion in the first half of 2020, a 29.8% increase compared with 2019. Human Services and Health charities saw the most significant increase in dollar value of grants, at 78.9% and 54.2% respectively. However, Arts saw a decline of 9% compared with the previous year’s giving increase.
The number of DAF grants to charities totaled 1,298,787 million, a 37.4% increase compared to the same period in 2019, representing a significant increase due to donor Covid-19 response, according to Eileen Heisman, NPT CEO.
“The 2020 Donor-Advised Fund Report reflects heightened philanthropic engagement, financial market fluctuations, increased interest in illiquid asset contributions and longer-term impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017,” she said in the news release.
Heisman said that grants from DAFs to qualified charities have grown twice as fast as contributions to DAFs, and have increased more than 90% over the last four years, reflecting donors’ wish to be active philanthropists who give generously and regularly to support the causes most important to them. That trend continued into 2020, she said.
“This year, NPT is also proud to publish the DAF sector’s first look at grantmaking in response to the coronavirus pandemic,” she said in the news release. “All eight charitable subsectors received more grants in the first half of 2020 than they did in the same period of 2019. DAF donors…continued to support the same causes (but) amplified their giving by granting to the urgent needs created by the pandemic.”
Founded in 1996, the National Philanthropic Trust (NPT) is an independent public charity headquartered in Jenkintown, Pa., that manages and grants donor-advised funds to nonprofit organizations worldwide.