Donor Advised Fund Requiring Bishop's Approval

Catholic foundation can block some grants AND a response from Communities Foundation of Texas

A Catholic foundation in Missouri’s policy allows for refusing to award donor advised fund grants to some Catholic organizations.

Mark Fain of St. Louis is reporting Roman Catholic Foundation of Eastern Missouri (RCFEM) refused to award a grant to Church Militant (CM), a Catholic media outlet.

Fain told Trust but Verify, “My very first donation was to Church Militant and they said they would not do it because CM was in bad standing with the local bishop, [Archbishop Allen] Vigneron.

Fain’s experience tracks with a statement of policy from RCFEM’s President and CEO Joe Bestgen who sent the following statement:

The Roman Catholic Foundation is very transparent and shares our policies when working with donors to establish Funds. We provide the written Donar-Advised Fund Polices and purposely discuss the grant recommendation requirements, making donors fully aware that grants from their fund can only be made to 501C3 charities that do not offend Catholic moral values as articulated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).  The organizations do not have to be Catholic, but they cannot offend Catholic moral values, or if Catholic, must be in good standing with their bishop.

When a grant recommendation is made and is found not to be in alignment with our policies, we pick up the phone and have a conversation with the donor to make them aware of the reasons we are unable to fulfill their grant request. It has been my experience on all occasions expect one, that the donor was grateful for the information, so as not to support an organization that is not in alignment with our policies and Catholic values.

Our screening is a specific value-added process that we highlight for those who wish to maintain a Donor-Advised Fund with us.  We are upfront and transparent about our program and recognize it may not be a fit for everyone. 

So RCFEM will block a grant if the 501(c)3’s activities conflict with Catholic teaching or in the case of a Catholic 501(c)3, if the organization is not approved by the bishop in the area where the organization operates.

Fain eventually moved all this funds to a Protestant funding source. “Now there are no issues as I can send my funds anywhere that is a 501[(c)3].”

Communities Foundation of Texas

Communities Foundation of Texas CFT, based in Dallas, is one of the largest community foundations in the nation. Like many community foundations, it was established by local leaders who wanted to provide a safety net for social service agencies and support for other important organization.

CFT Director of Marketing and Communications Nicole Paquette told Trust But Verify:

We are a 70-year-old community foundation. Our long-standing practice has been to share all available information that we have with our charitable fund holders about the organizations they request to support, to help them make the best-informed decisions for grantmaking requests from their funds, including making them aware of nonprofit organizations that have been designated as hate groups. To my knowledge, we have not blocked any grant requests from donor-advised funds that are allowable to registered 501c3 organizations in good standing with the IRS, under IRS guidelines.

TBV is still waiting for clarification from CFT about how it determines which groups are “hate” groups.

Alliance Defending Freedom is claiming the policy of blocking donor advised fund grants is not limited to Fidelity Charitable. Donors with donor advised funds should check with the holder of their funds to confirm their policy.