Donor-Advised Fund Holders Favor Short-Term Charity Needs, Study Says

Title: Giving and Planning

Organization: Fidelity Charitable

Summary: Donor-advised-fund account holders prefer to get short-term rather than long-term results from their giving, according to a new survey.

More than three-quarters of donors have a good sense of which charities they will support each year, though just over half are unsure about how much they will give. Women were significantly more likely than men to have established bequests and to have a formal plan for their philanthropy.

The survey results are from 1,042 people who have donor-advised-fund accounts at Fidelity who were asked how much time they devote to philanthropy, whether they have formalized legacy plans and philanthropic goals, and what their plans are for giving.

Other findings:

• One in five donors prefers to make contributions with long-term impact while two in five prefer to give to meet an organization’s short-term needs. Men are more likely than women to make gifts addressing long-term needs, such as capital campaigns and endowments.
• About 30 percent of donors reserve a certain amount of money to support unanticipated charitable needs.
• Women are more likely to have formal legacy plans; 64 percent of women have established a bequest or other planned gift or intend to in the next five years, compared with 56 percent of men.
• Twenty seven percent of women have a mission statement or a set of articulated goals to guide their giving, compared with 19 percent of men.
• About one-third of donors have planned their giving further in advance since opening their donor-advised fund.
• Sixty-three percent spend five or more hours on philanthropic activities each month. Twenty-three percent spend 20 hours or more.
• Donors in their 60s spend more time on their giving than other age groups, and more than half of donors in their 50s expect to spend more time on philanthropy in the next five years.
• Eighty-two percent of donors consult at least one other person about giving decisions.

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