All About Donor-Advised Gift Funds: How Middle-Class Families Can Enhance Their Charitable Giving with Maximum Tax Benefits

Abstract

The first donor-advised gift fund was established nearly 90 years ago. But it was not until Fidelity Investments created its Charitable Gift Fund in 1992, soon followed by other large brokerage firms and mutual fund companies, that the funds became, in the words of Forbes magazine, "the hottest trend in philanthropy."Donor-advised gift funds offer a simple, flexible, and tax-efficient way to convert appreciated securities into a "charitable checkbook" from which to make relatively small, routine donations. They are, in effect, charitable foundations "for the rest of us." This presentation, made at the National YMCA Conference and Training Center at Silver Bay, New York, explains what donor-advised gift funds are and how they work. (Readers are cautioned that certain tax rates, legal restrictions, and administrative regulations may have changed since the presentation was made in 2001.)