NEW YORK (AP) — United Way, ranked as America’s largest charity for all but one of the past 25 years, has been knocked from that spot by Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, the leader of a fast-growing philanthropic sector that is transforming the way many Americans give.
Boston-based Fidelity, which collected $4.6 billion in private donations in 2015, is a donor-advised fund — an increasingly popular type of charity to which a donor can make a contribution, immediately receive a tax benefit, then recommend grants from the fund any time thereafter.
The new rankings released by the Chronicle of Philanthropy showed that Fidelity’s private support rose nearly 20 percent from 2014, when it narrowly trailed United Way. United Way is now in second place with $3.7 billion in support — down 4.2 percent from 2014.