United Way loses its ranking as America's largest charity

NEW YORK (AP) — United Way, ranked as America's largest charity for all but one of the past 25 years, has been emphatically knocked from that spot by Fidelity Charitable, the leader of a rapidly growing philanthropic sector that is transforming the way many Americans give.

Boston-based Fidelity, which collected $4.6 billion in private donations in 2015, is a donor-advised fund – an increasingly popular type of charity to which a donor can make a contribution, immediately receive a tax benefit, and then recommend grants from the fund at any time thereafter.

The new rankings released today by the Chronicle of Philanthropy showed that Fidelity's private support rose nearly 20 percent from 2014, when it narrowly trailed United Way. The new data showed United Way in second place, with $3.7 billion in support – down 4.2 percent from 2014.

Feeding America, which supplies many food banks in the U.S., was third in the new rankings, followed by a California-based donor-advised fund, the Schwab Charitable Fund. Catholic Charities USA ranked fifth, the Salvation Army was sixth.

Since 1991, when the Chronicle of Philanthropy started its rankings, United Way had been the largest charity in every year except 2006, when the Salvation Army took the top spot.