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December 12, 2011 at 09:55 AM
The Treasury Department has issued a report on donor-advised funds and supporting organizations that had been mandated by the Pension Protection Act of 2006.
According to the Quarterly, Treasury’s report, issued last week, relied on 2006 data for a study published five years later—for reasons that remain unclear.
As of 2006, the overall Treasury numbers show DAFs paying out at a considerably higher rate than private foundations: an average DAF payout for 2006 of 9.3% for all DAFs, 14.2% for national commercial DAF managers and 28.7% for other national DAFs (the median payout of noncommercial national DAFs was only 10.5%, suggesting that some of those national DAFs turn over the bulk of their funding every year, the Quarterly pointed out). This compares with the minimum required payout of 5% for private foundations.
Community foundation DAF payout averaged 9.3%, the same as the national total. Educational institutions not the commercial funds were the slow spenders, with an average payout of 3.3% and a median of zero.
The Quarterly said Treasury appears satisfied with the aggregate payouts by DAF managing entities, and largely unworried about the issue of donor control. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, however, was reportedly unhappy with the report, not least because it used five-year-old data in its analysis.
