By Mark Hurtubise, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2021
For more than a decade, I was president and CEO of Inland Northwest Community Foundation (now known as Innovia). In early 2017, after I had announced my goal of pursuing other interests, we discovered overwhelming evidence to deny a donor-advisor’s recommendation of a grant. He wished to award it to VDare, a charity that supports white supremacy. The board approved the grant anyway.
During my last six months as the foundation’s head, the subject became contentious with the board and foundation’s attorney, whose firm, as it turned out, was representing both the foundation and the donor-advisor who wanted to give to VDare. The scandal alerted me to the problem that donor-advised funds (DAFs) can raise for their sponsor organizations.
DAFs are the fastest-growing vehicle for Americans to set aside billions of dollars for charitable use. A DAF begins with a donor making a tax-deductible contribution to a public charity such as a community foundation or a commercial national charity (e.g., Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, and Vanguard Charitable), which then creates a separate account for the donor, who may recommend grants from a donor-advised fund to IRS-approved 501(c)(3) nonprofits.
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