Schwab Affiliate Halts Customer Donations to Southern Poverty Law Center

The donor-advised fund affiliated with Charles Schwab, DAFgiving360, has suspended account holders’ ability to give money to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group.Last week, the Justice Department indicted the group and accused it of financial crimes.This week, the donor-advised funds that bear Fidelity’s and Vanguard’s names also cut the group off.A spokeswoman for the Schwab-affiliated fund said, “If a governing body of a charity declares an investigation into a charity it oversees, DAFgiving360 may suspend grants to the organization.” She would not provide a list of other organizations that it has suspended.Donor-advised funds allow individuals to create accounts, donate cash or securities into them and take a tax deduction for the full amount that year.

Then they can parcel out donations to charities and other nonprofits over many years.“Giving to your favorite charity has never been easier” is the language that DAFgiving360 uses on its website.Charles Schwab lists the account balance right next to investment account balances on its own website.DAFgiving360 is also careful, however, to use specific language that gets to the legal reality of how the funds work.

Users can “recommend” grants to “eligible” charities, for example, which means DAFgiving360 controls the money and the account holder is technically just advising.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....