Working Paper: NBER ID: w23872
Authors: James Andreoni
Abstract: Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) are now a major source of charitable donations in the US, responsible for 1 in 10 dollars donated to charity in 2015. In 2016, Fidelity Charitable, whose only mission is to provide DAFS, became the largest charity in the US. Paradoxically, most people have never heard of DAFs or Fidelity Charitable. This leads us to ask, who uses DAFs and why, what is the impact of government tax policy toward DAFs, and could the extra fiscal cost of subsidizing DAFs be balanced out by an extra public gain of new charity resulting from tax policy toward DAFs?
Keywords: Donor Advised Funds; Charitable Giving; Tax Policy
JEL Codes: H2; H24; H26; H3
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| DAFs (Y10) | tax policy (H20) |
| DAFs (Y10) | charitable giving (D64) |
| tax savings (H20) | charitable contributions (D64) |
| DAFs (Y10) | timing of charitable donations (D64) |
| DAFs (Y10) | charitable contributions from wealthy individuals (D64) |
| DAFs (Y10) | societal benefits (Z18) |