Fidelity Charitable Bows to Radical Leftist Pressure

War of the nonprofits

A years-long effort by a coalition of radical leftist groups appears to have successfully pressured Fidelity Charitable (FC) to block anonymous grants to conservative groups.

In a complaint filed with Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry’s office in mid-July, Fidelity Charitable client Dawn Manning alleges the financial giant is engaging in deceptive and unfair business practices.

In a Friday press release from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADL), which is assisting Manning in her complaint, the legal defense organization claims, “Fidelity Charitable is breaking its promise to honor donors’ grant requests in a ‘cause-neutral’ manner.”

Furthermore, ADL is asking Landry to “investigate Fidelity Charitable for potential discrimination and misrepresentations in violation of state consumer protection laws.”

Unmasking Fidelity

In February 2019, Alex Kotch was investigating the network of funding behind conservative organizations. He was looking at the role played by donor advised funds. Specifically, he examined tax filings from:

·      Fidelity Charitable

·      Donors Trust

·      Schwab Charitable Fund

·      Vanguard Charitable

His report in Sludge, a follow-the-money-in-politics news outlet, revealed:

“… from mid-2014 through 2017, these four donor-advised funds combined to give nearly $11 million to 34 groups that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) considers to be hate groups, according to its 2017 hate map. These hate groups include 12 anti-LGBT groups, 12 anti-Muslim groups, eight anti-immigrant groups, one white nationalist group, and one radical traditional Catholic group.”

The article motivated a group of mostly Boston-based nonprofits to form Unmasking Fidelity, a coalition targeting Fidelity Charitable (the largest charity in the United States) and seeking to force the nonprofit giant to:

·      Disclose its donors

·      Reveal the donor advised fund fee-for-service

·      Block grants to conservative organizations

Battle of the Nonprofit Letters

Within days, Unmasking Fidelity had composed a letter to Abigail Pierrepont Johnson, president and CEO of Boston-based Fidelity Investments, and requested that a small delegation of groups “meet with you to discuss this important issue.” The letter was signed by an array of Boston-based organizations — ACLU of Massachusetts, American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, Boston Teachers Union, Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center and 31 others.

Fidelity Charitable did not respond so Unmasking Fidelity staged protests at the company’s Boston headquarters. Still no response.

After the events at the nation’s Capitol on January 6, Unmasking Fidelity sent another letter to Johnson; this time, less polite.

“Your corporations have shoveled millions of dollars to hate groups by enabling wealthy individuals to use Fidelity’s donor-advised funds to make anonymous donations to them. Last week, we saw the disastrous consequences of funding these organizations…. If you fail to act, the world will hold you responsible for any further acts of violence or treason. We demand that you act swiftly and decisively to ban your donor-advised funds from making donations to hate groups.”

They asked for a response within 24 hours but signed it, “Regards.”

A full year later, Philadelphia Statement, a group promoting free speech, composed a public letter, directly addressing Unmasking Fidelity’s demands and supporting “Fidelity’s stance of cause neutrality” while “offering donor advised fund account holders the maximum number of charitable choices.”

The letter was signed by a number of conservative organizations, led off by Alliance Defending Freedom, and also included thousands of individuals.

Unmasking Fidelity’s Successful Pressure Tactics

In May of 2023, Manning accessed her Fidelity Charitable donor advised fund and requested grants be sent anonymously to:

·      Alliance Defending Freedom

·      Family Research Council

·      Center for Security Policy

·      Pacific Justice Institute

FC contacted Manning saying, in order for the grants to proceed she would need to call and supply additional information. During the call, an FC representative told her “the Board of Trustees is not approving anonymous grants to these organizations at this time.”

Following the phone conversation, Manning submitted anonymous grant requests for CAIR Foundation, Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal Defense, all politically left-leaning and all approved on the same day when they were submitted.

“Everyone should oppose this name-and-shame censorship,” said ADF Legal Counsel Michael Ross. “Every American should be free to support causes they believe in without fear of harassment or intimidation. That’s why the anonymity provided by donor-advised funds like Fidelity Charitable is so important, and it’s why government officials like the Louisiana attorney general must ensure that people of faith are not treated as second-class citizens.”

Alliance Defending Freedom reports that other donors have contacted them with similar experiences.

Trust But Verify contacted ADF and asked if any donors have mentioned problems with Vanguard, Schwab or Donors Trust.

Jacqueline Ribeiro responded: “We have not encountered this problem with Vanguard, but we have received similar complaints from account holders at other DAFs and community foundations.”

TBV also reached out to Communities Foundation of Texas (CFT), one of the nation’s largest community foundations, and asked if its trustees had a policy of blocking grants to any organizations. As of press time, CFT had not responded.