Fidelity Charitable donors recommended a record $5.2 billion in grants last year, a $700 million increase from a year earlier, according to the company.
The donor-advised fund contributions comprised nearly 1.3 million grants that benefitted over 140,000 charitable organizations in the U.S. and around the world, Fidelity said.
“Last year we witnessed the enduring generosity of our donors who demonstrated their commitment to philanthropy and used their donor-advised funds to recommend more grantsthan ever to support thousands of charities despite the uncertainty around tax reform and extreme market volatility during giving season,” Pamela Norley, president of Fidelity Charitable, said in a prepared statement. “One of the inherent strengths of donor-advised funds is that they enable sustained philanthropy regardless of the market environment.”
Fidelity Charitable said the number of giving accounts it administers has doubled over the past 10 years, from 51,918 in 2009 to 123,114 in 2018. During that time, the number of grants per giving account has also doubled, from 5.8 to 10.4.
The Fidelity subsidiary also noted that donor-advised giving illustrates how millennials and Gen Xers continue to exhibit growing interest in impact investments.
Charitable dollars in Fidelity Charitable giving accounts allocated to impact investments increased by 16 percent last year to nearly $1 billion. Fidelity Charitable also said it launched three new impact investment pools in 2018.
The most popular charity among Fidelity Charitable donors in 2018 was Doctors Without Borders, followed by the American National Red Cross, the Salvation Army, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Habitat for Humanity, United Way, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the Nature Conservancy.
Since inception, Fidelity Charitable has supported more than 278,000 charities with nearly $35 billion in donor-recommended grants.