Donor-Advised Funds Growing Ever Faster: How Should Nonprofits Access the Wealth?

The National Philanthropic Trust released its 2015 Donor-Advised Fund Report last week, revealing that 2014 marked a year of growth in all of its key indicators, including the number of donor-advised funds, total contributions to them, total combined assets and total grant dollars distributed.

Of the estimated $358 billion in charitable contributions in the U.S. in 2014, donor-advised funds received more than $19 billion, representing a 14 percent increase over the previous year. Overall, the share of total giving going to donor-advised funds has been increasing since at least 2007.

According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, groups that solicit and manage donor-advised funds have become a force to be reckoned with, new kids on the block that continue to “crowd into the upper ranks of America’s biggest charities.”