Doing double the good with your charitable dollars sounds like a no-brainer, but people are just starting to catch on. A growing number are using donor-advised funds– like NCF’s Giving Fund – which allow you to maximize your charitable impact.
Around 500,000 donor-advised fund accounts across the United States had total assets of $100 billion in fiscal 2017, up 23 percent from the prior year, according to the National Philanthropic Trust. Donations grew about 20 percent to about $19 billion over the year.
Many donors use such funds when they have a large cash infusion from say, the sale of a company or an inheritance, said Gil Crawford, chief executive of MicroVest, an asset management firm based in Bethesda, Maryland which focuses on sustainable investments.
Donor-advised funds may become more popular as US tax laws that went into effect this year encourage saving up charitable donations over several years until they surpass the new, bigger standard deduction.
Money in a donor-advised fund is typically put into a general selection of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This is where socially responsible investing is gaining a foothold – instead of a general S&P 500 mutual fund, donors are clamoring for options that weed out environmentally irresponsible companies.