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Highlights
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donor-advised funds held nearly 52 billion](https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/daf-grants-to-charities-totaled-52-billion-in-2022-report-finds) 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.
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The rapid rise of donor-advised funds — charitable investment accounts run by finance giants like Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab, and Vanguard — signals a new stage in the dark-money takeover of the political system. Wall Street is now helping the nation’s elite funnel vast amounts of cash to extremist causes with zero transparency or tax repercussions — and it’s spending millions lobbying Congress to keep it that way.
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While private foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Ford Foundation are required to disclose all of their charitable donations and the recipients, wealthy philanthropists who want anonymity — and a tax break — can instead donate to a donor-advised fund.
✏️ Why be held accountable when you can use the system to hide where you put your money, and you can affect change and push your agendas anonymously and in peace? 🔗 View Highlight
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Once money is in a donor-advised fund, the original donor can send it to any charity of their choosing, but the ultimate source of the money, and the amount, is completely obscured.
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Donor-advised funds can contribute to the Heritage Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit. The Heritage Foundation can then funnel money toward political campaigns through its separate “sister” dark-money arm, Heritage Action for America. “The joint presence of a 501(c)(4) organization and an affiliated charity has become an increasingly common phenomenon that makes the ability to ‘follow the money’ and separate charitable from political that much more difficult
✏️ So somehow, there are dark-money nonprofits, and charitable nonprofits, and donor-advised funds. The funds go into charitable nonprofits, which then take the money to their sister arms, the dark-money nonprofits.. and those can then contribute to campaigns and politicians. 🔗 View Highlight
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In total, these funds reportedly donated $131.4 million to extremist groups between 2020 and 2022, comprising more than 25 percent of all private and nonprofit contributions to extremist organizations.
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“The reason we as a public have agreed to give tax deductions for charitable giving is because, in exchange for those tax deductions, that money is supposed to be used for a common public benefit,” said Flannery. “It’s not supposed to be used to advance specific personal priorities or agendas.”