A shift in thinking could be good for nonprofits and donors alike

Donating assets that have appreciated in value² often means you won’t be hit with the associated capital gains taxes.³ You may be able to give more to charity as a result—sometimes 20% more.

Contributing assets that you may no longer have a use for can help rebalance, diversify, and strengthen your portfolio. A donation of non-public or closely-held stock in advance of a potential liquidity event, meanwhile, can be a good way to soften the tax consequences of a windfall.

Our most commonly contributed complex assets include private equity, closely-held stock, LLC and limited partnership interests, hedge fund interests, and insurance policies.

Not sure what you might give? Here are some guiding questions as you review your portfolio

1. Are you considering selling a business or business interest in the near future?
2. Do you have highly appreciated financial assets that you’re wary of selling for tax reasons?
3. Does your employer offer a buyback program for company stock?
4. Do you have insurance policies you no longer need?
5. Do you have a vacation property or second home you’re thinking of selling?

Want to learn more? Visit our complex assets page to see how our process works. Give us a call if you want to consult about a specific asset.

On February 12, 2020, powered by our donors’ generosity, we gave our 10,000,000,000th grant dollar to charity since our founding in 1997.

That’s $10 billion worth of deserving causes, meaningful actions, and differences made.

This tremendous achievement is a testament to our donors’ passion for charitable giving and the commitment to long-term impact so many of them make. Since inception, Vanguard Charitable donors have issued nearly one million individual grants to more than 100,000 unique charities.

The ten-billion-dollar milestone speaks to the effectiveness of our low-cost, high-value donor-advised fund: As grants have been adding up, so too have investment returns. In the same timeframe that we granted $10 billion, our investment options returned $4 billion in additional growth.

This is $4 billion in charitable impact that would not have existed were it not for our donor-advised fund model and our donors’ strategic investment choices.

Grasping the sheer size of a number like $10 billion—and understanding what it means to hardworking charities around the world—can be difficult. Let’s try to put it in perspective:

View our press release for this milestone here.

In short, we are humbled by our donors’ capacity for giving and inspired by their charitable visions. We are thrilled to be their partners in this journey.

And this is just the beginning: The chart below shows why we expect future milestones to come at an even faster rate.

We look forward to seeing how much more good we can do together in the years to come.