I wanted to see how easy it is to transfer funds between DAF institutions. Why? Because when I was looking over the 2019 Fidelity Charitable 990, I saw that there were many other organizations noted BEFORE Doctors Without Borders, which is regularly number one in overall donor popularity at Fidelity Charitable.
It turns out the large sums of funds are transferred to National Philanthropic Trust (NPT) and Vanguard and other national DAFs (large in terms of tens of millions of dollars, but small in overall percentage of funds noted as annual distributions, since those are in the billions). This depends on your point of view.
I think tens of millions of dollars NOT going to the charities who will use the funds immediately is an opportunity for greater transparency in 2021.
What was my experience in testing this process?
I made a grant request and provided our Schwab Charitable account number.
The grant submission was approved the SAME DAY, which is good for Fidelity Charitable.
They MAILED a check the next day. Mailed? Timely but hardly efficient, as Fidelity Charitable is king of the hill for EFT/ACH grant transfers.
