Eight in ten Americans (81 percent) do not believe taxpayers should subsidize the wealthy to create private foundations that will exist in perpetuity, a survey by the Charity Reform Initiative of the Institute for Policy Studies finds.

Based on a survey of more than 1,000 adults conducted in partnership with Ispos in June, the report, Americans’ Understanding of and Opinions about Charitable Foundations and Donor-Advised Funds (11 pages, PDF), found that while 82 percent of respondents were supportive of the role foundations play, only 38 percent were aware that donors can receive generous tax breaks when they give. Once informed, 80 percent of respondents identifying as liberal/Democrat, 82 percent of those identifying as moderate, and 90 percent of those identifying as conservative/Republican said U.S. taxpayers should not have to subsidize wealthy Americans’ philanthropic giving.

Similarly, only 17 percent of respondents were aware that a third of all individual charitable donations currently go into private foundations and donor-advised funds (DAFs). Nearly 69 percent—including 74 percent of liberals/Democrats, 69 percent of moderates, and 70 percent of conservatives/Republicans—expressed support for a 10 percent payout requirement for both foundations (up from the current 5 percent) and DAFs (which currently have no requirement). In addition, 72 percent supported requiring DAFs to make grants within two years (50 percent) and five years (22 percent) of receiving donations, respectively—including 75 percent of liberals/Democrats, 74 percent of moderates, and 76 percent of conservatives/Republicans.

“The more the public understands the taxpayer-subsidized warehousing of charitable dollars, the more they support a systemic change in philanthropy,” said Charity Reform Initiative director Chuck Collins. “The results of this survey show that across the political spectrum, an informed public strongly supports common sense reforms that would curtail the warehousing of charitable wealth.”

“A breathtakingly large number of us in the U.S. are facing hunger right now due to the pandemic and associated economic disruption,” said Oregon Food Bank CEO Susannah Morgan. “We need resources to tackle hunger and its root causes right now—not in some hypothetical future—so we need changes right now. We must change the law around donor advised funds to require timely distributions to charities.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images)