How to Fill Out and Submit the Fidelity Charitable Grant Recommendation Form

To move money from your Giving Account to a charity, submit a Fidelity Charitable grant recommendation form online, through the mobile app, or on paper. The grant must be at least $50, the recipient must be an eligible U.S. public charity, and once approved the funds typically reach the charity within about ten business days.¹

The Fastest Way: Online or Through the App

Most donors never touch the paper form. The online portal and the Fidelity Charitable mobile app (iOS and Android) walk through the same screens and give you an electronic confirmation the moment you submit.²

The flow runs like this:³

Log in and click “Make a grant.” Search for the charity by name or pick one you’ve supported before.
If the search doesn’t find it, scroll down, click “Recommend a charity,” and enter the organization’s Tax ID. GuideStar is a useful place to look that up.
Enter the dollar amount, say how the grant should be used (unrestricted or for a specific program), choose your acknowledgment preference, and decide whether it’s one-time, scheduled, or recurring.
Allocate the funds across your investment pools.
Review the confirmation screen and submit.

The minimum is $50 per grant, or the full remaining balance if the account holds less than that.¹

Submitting the Paper Form

The PDF Grant Recommendation Form lives on the Fidelity Investments forms page.⁴ It asks for the same information the online flow collects:

Your Giving Account number.
The charity’s full legal name and nine-digit Employer Identification Number. The EIN matters: many charities share similar names or sit under a parent organization, and the EIN is what Fidelity Charitable uses to confirm the right legal entity.
The grant amount, which must be $50 or more.⁵
The grant purpose. Leave it unrestricted for general operating support, or direct it toward a specific program, campaign, or fund.
Your acknowledgment preference.

Fax is the fastest paper route. Send the completed form to 877-665-4274.⁶ If you’re mailing it:

Standard mail: Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund & PIF, PO Box 770001, Cincinnati, OH 45277-0001
Overnight delivery: Fidelity Charitable, 100 Crosby Parkway KC1D-FCS, Covington, KY 41015-4325

Mail adds transit time plus manual handling, so the total turnaround runs longer than fax or online.⁶

Choosing Your Acknowledgment Preference

Each grant lets you choose how much of your information the charity sees.⁷ There are three settings:

Full acknowledgment shares your name, address, and Giving Account name. This is the default on every new recommendation.
Partial acknowledgment shares only the Giving Account name.
Anonymous sends the money with no donor or account information attached.

You can pick a different setting on any individual grant, or call Fidelity Charitable to change the default for the whole account.

Grants That Won’t Be Approved

Grants can go to most IRS-qualified 501(c)(3) public charities, certain private operating foundations, and units of government. They cannot go to individuals, private non-operating foundations, political campaigns, or certain supporting organizations.¹

Several purposes are off-limits even when the recipient qualifies:

Tickets to galas, benefit dinners, or charitable auctions, even when part of the price is technically deductible.
Membership fees or anything else where you’d receive goods or services in return.
Legally binding pledges you’ve already made. Non-binding expressions of intent are treated differently.
Political campaign activity or lobbying.
Anything tied to preferential athletic seating or similar perks.

The underlying rule is that a donor-advised fund distribution cannot provide more than incidental personal benefit to the donor, the donor’s advisor, or their families.¹ Under federal law, a taxable distribution from a donor-advised fund triggers a 20 percent excise tax on the sponsoring organization, plus a separate 5 percent tax on any fund manager who knowingly agreed to it, capped at $10,000 per distribution.⁸

One geographic boundary worth knowing: Fidelity Charitable generally does not grant directly to organizations formed outside the United States. To support international work, recommend a grant to an eligible U.S.-based intermediary that funds overseas projects. Those grants follow the intermediary’s own rules, which may include added fees or higher minimums.¹

What Happens After You Submit

Every recommendation goes through a due-diligence review. Fidelity Charitable verifies the recipient’s current IRS public charity status, screens for conflicts of interest or prohibited benefit, and confirms the grant purpose fits its guidelines.⁹ If an organization has lost its public charity status, grants to it stop immediately and recommending donors are notified.

Once approved, grants are typically issued within ten business days. The timeline can run longer when the recipient is a charity Fidelity Charitable has not reviewed before.¹ If a recommendation is not approved, the authorized individuals on the account are notified.¹⁰

Approved grants reach the charity by paper check or electronic funds transfer. Charities enrolled in Fidelity Charitable’s free EFT program receive funds directly in their bank account through Stripe or ACH.¹¹ If the charity hasn’t enrolled, a check is mailed. You get an account portal or email notification once the grant has been sent.

No New Tax Deduction for the Grant

A point that trips up some donors: recommending a grant from your Giving Account does not create a new tax deduction. You already claimed the deduction when you contributed the assets to the account. The grant is simply your instruction on where those dollars should go.¹² Your year-end tax statement reflects contributions, not grant recommendations.

Keep the Account Active

Fidelity Charitable expects every Giving Account to recommend grants regularly. After a full year with no grants clearing, you’ll hear from them encouraging activity. After two years of inactivity, Fidelity Charitable grants 5 percent of the account balance to qualified public charities approved by the Trustees, ideally ones you’ve supported before.¹

1
Fidelity Charitable. Recommending a Grant
2
Fidelity Charitable. What Is the Fidelity Charitable App for iOS and Android
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Fidelity Charitable. How-To Recommend a Grant From Your Giving Account
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Fidelity Investments. Online Forms and Applications
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Fidelity Charitable. Is There a Minimum Grant Amount
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Fidelity Charitable. Where Should I Send My Forms to Be Processed
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Fidelity Charitable. How Is My Information Shared With Recipient Charities
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 US Code 4966 – Taxes on Taxable Distributions
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Fidelity Charitable. Grant Review and Due Diligence Process
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Fidelity Charitable. Grant Processing Timeline
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Fidelity Charitable. Electronic Funds Transfer for Nonprofits
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Fidelity Charitable. Fidelity Charitable Official Site