A group of foundation trustees, donors and philanthropic leaders asked Congress on Tuesday to mandate increased annual payouts as an emergency charity stimulus response to the COVID-19 crisis.
In the open letter, 275 foundation trustees, donors and philanthropic leaders asked Congress to require foundations to double their required annual payout percentage and to create a mandated payout for donor-advised funds for three years.
Private foundations hold $1.2 trillion and are mandated to pay out a 5% annual minimum, while donor-advised charity funds, with $120 billion in assets, have no mandated payout but receive immediate tax deductions, the group said. The changes would unleash $200 billion in additional charity funds over three years at no taxpayer cost, it estimated.
The letter was organized by the Charity Reform Initiative of the Institute for Policy Studies, Patriotic Millionaires and the Wallace Global Fund. The 275 signers of the letter include officials with the Aileen Getty Foundation, George Gund Foundation, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, Amalgamated Charitable, Compton Fund and Lodestar Foundation.
