Most Large US Public Charities Are Now Dark-Money Funds
Finance giants like Fidelity and Schwab are pushing “donor-advised funds” that enable the ultrawealthy to funnel cash to far-right extremist groups anonymously under the guise of charitable giving. Project 2025 has benefited enormously.
Fidelity Charitable — created by Fidelity Investments — allows the ultrarich to anonymously donate to nonprofits like the Heritage Foundation, all the while scoring immediate tax deductions and nourishing investments that can grow tax-free. (Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A significant portion of the money bankrolling the Heritage Foundation — the conservative think tank behind the sweeping Project 2025 initiative to reshape the federal government if former president Donald Trump is reelected — comes from a growing network of shadowy charity groups run by the nation’s top financial firms that use a legal carve-out to keep their ultrawealthy donors hidden.
These groups, called donor-advised funds, have donated more than $18 million to the Heritage Foundation since 2020, according to a new Lever analysis and research by the Institute for Policy Studies — and the amount is increasing.
In total, donor-advised funds held nearly $230 billion in assets in 2022, $52 billion of which was donated to nonprofits including the Heritage Foundation. Such funds now make up seven of the top ten public charities in the country. What’s more, they have been found to distribute money to anti-government and hate groups at more than three times the rate of other charitable sources, according to a study published this May.
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