The Single Charity Fund
Jay Bennett, Founder and Chairman NCF Twin Cities
December, 2026 / True Riches
Over 90% of gifts to Christian non-profits are made out of cash. Gifts of cash are made from after tax money. That makes cash gifts perhaps 65 cents on the dollar.
Gifts of publicly traded stock can be made on a pre-tax basis providing 100 cents on the dollar. Most donors who care would rather give 100 cents than 65 cents if they knew about the simple mechanism to do so.
The donor simply contacts her investment manager and asks him to wire transfer appreciated stock in kind to the favored charity, IF that charity is conspicuously experienced in handling such gifts. The charity then sells the stock and allocates the proceeds to specific purposes. Most small to mid-sized charities handle such gifts on a sporadic basis. What could be a flood is a trickle.
Christian ministries are increasingly partnering with sponsors of donor advised funds which process hundreds of wire transfer gifts each day. The donor advised fund sponsor (Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, the NCF, or others) receives the wired shares and sells them. The proceeds then go into a designated donor advised fund for gifting.
There is no taxation on the appreciation in value between the cost basis and that day’s fair market value. The donor gets a fair market value deduction and the U.S. Treasury gets shut out. The donor advised fund sponsor then wires or mails the desired gift to the non-profit.
While many donors to Christian charities and nonprofits are now setting up their own donor advised funds to facilitate tax-wise and more generous giving, there is growing popularity among non-profits to setup a dedicated donor advised fund called a Single Charity Fund. Such funds are set up in the name of the non-profit. Anyone can make tax deductible gifts of cash or publicly traded stock or appreciated business interests to that fund and get a FMV tax deduction. However, all contributions to that dedicated fund must go to that single charity which set it up i.e. your organization.
A single charity fund is technically owned by the donor advised fund sponsor i.e. Fidelity, Schwab, or the NCF and the donor gets her tax deduction from that sponsor. However, the fund is set up with the non-profit putting its people in charge of the fund as advisors and they can draw funds down into its operations at any time. Or, the non-profit can invest the money in the Single Charity Fund for a period of time where it is not on the books of the non-profit.
Examples of non-profits using Single Charity Funds are available to discuss the idea.
For further information contact Jay Bennett (jbennett@ncfgiving.com) or Tyler Van Eps (tvaneps@ncfgiving.com). They can identify multiple sponsors for such funds allowing you to evaluate the concept and which sponsor, if any, may be best for you.