A group of Wall Street–backed charity funds fueling the dark money takeover of American politics is set to help collect half of all individual charitable donations within the next three years. These funds, the largest of which are managed by the country’s top financial firms, bestow the ultrawealthy with massive charitable tax breaks even if their donations never reach working charities.
So-called donor-advised funds not only operate under a cloak of donor anonymity and bankroll anti-government and hate groups at more than three times the rate of other charitable sources, but there is also no requirement that the money is ever distributed to charities. This means wealthy individuals can get a charity-based tax break without actually participating in charitable giving.
The number of people putting money into charitable intermediaries like donor-advised funds is rapidly growing: according to a study published yesterday by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, donor-advised funds and private charitable foundations currently receive 35 percent of all individual giving in the United States. If the trend continues, donor-advised funds and private foundations are expected to collect half of all individual donations by 2028.
That means the working charities celebrated as part of Giving Tuesday yesterday may soon be overshadowed by the financial instruments that the country’s rich and powerful are using to protect their wealth and secretly support extremist causes.
“When Congress passed the laws that shape our philanthropic sector, I don’t think this is what they had in mind,” said study coauthor Bella DeVaan, associate director of the Charity Reform Initiative at the Institute for Policy Studies. “Finance and…
Auteur: Helen Santoro
