Jewish Communal Fund ranked No. 8 in The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s most recent Top 10 Donor Advised Funds list, as measured by contributions to the DAF in fiscal year 2018.
Overall, America’s 10 biggest sponsors of donor advised funds took in $21.5 billion last year, an increase of 24.7 percent since 2017, according to the Chronicle.
The article attributed the growth in donor advised fund assets to a combination of several factors, including the new tax law that went into effect in 2018.
“The tax law roughly doubled the standard deduction, which may be prompting some donors to ‘bunch’ what would otherwise be multiple years of charitable giving into one tax year,” the article stated. “Taxpayers can contribute a large amount to a donor-advised fund in a single year to maximize their tax benefits while continuing to dole out funds to charities from those accounts any time they want to.”
Donor advised funds are easier to manage and less restrictive than creating a private foundation, which would be required to pay out at least 5 percent of assets each year, among other requirements.
Donor advised fund sponsors also make it easy to dispose of complex assets.