Petition with 50,000 signatures asks Fidelity Charitable to lift its block on grants to the Southern Poverty Law Center
Color of Change and more than a dozen other nonprofits want the largest donor-advised fund sponsor to restore the grants and to stop blocking charities charged with, but not convicted of, a crime. The center's federal fraud trial is set for February.
Boston. Color of Change and more than a dozen other progressive nonprofits say they have delivered a petition with more than 50,000 signatures to Fidelity Charitable, asking the country's largest sponsor of donor-advised funds to lift its block on grants to the Southern Poverty Law Center, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported Oct. 16. The In Our Name Fund and the Women Donors Network are among them.
Fidelity Charitable, which manages more than $85 billion in donor-advised accounts, stopped approving grants to the center after a federal grand jury in Montgomery, Ala., indicted it on April 21. The charges, wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, concern the center's payments to informants inside white supremacist groups. The case, before U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks, is set for trial in February, according to the Chronicle. Fidelity Charitable declined to comment to the Chronicle.
What the petition asks
The petition asks Fidelity Charitable to restore grants directed to the center; to allow grants to organizations that keep their tax exemption even if they have been charged with, but not found guilty of, a crime; to give nonprofits notice and a chance to respond before their eligibility changes; and to tell donors about any blocks.
Fidelity Charitable's published grant guidelines say a recommendation may be declined when "the organization is being investigated for alleged illegal activities or non-charitable activities, such as terrorism, money laundering, hate crimes, or fraud." The same page says the fund "does not limit grantmaking based on political, religious, or philosophical grounds."
Nadine Smith, president of Color of Change, told the Chronicle that Fidelity Charitable was making itself "the mechanism for punishing organizations" before any day in court.
“We are witnessing an industry fearful of provoking a vindictive administration.”
Other platforms
Vanguard Charitable and DAFgiving360, the Schwab affiliate, have also blocked grants to the center, the Chronicle reported, as has Benevity, a workplace giving platform. Benevity cited terms of use under which organizations facing criminal charges "that go to the core of how they solicit, handle, or use charitable funds" are not eligible to remain active, and said it pauses eligibility while court cases are resolved.
Dan Petegorsky, a consultant with the Charity Reform Initiative at the Institute for Policy Studies, said Benevity's block could reach hundreds of thousands more people than Fidelity Charitable's. Douglas Napier, chief executive of the 1792 Exchange, defended the blocks. "If the house is on fire, I don't think they have to wait for it to burn to the ground," he said.
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