What organizations are eligible to receive grants from Fidelity Charitable?

Fidelity Charitable can generally make grants only to public charities, private operating foundations and government units. Fidelity Charitable does not make grants to certain types of supporting organizations, private non-operating foundations, government instrumentalities, or testing for public safety organizations. An IRS-qualified public charity is a charitable organization that has successfully filed an exemption application with the IRS for its public charity status, or certain other organizations that the IRS considers to be "public charities" without filing, such as many religious organizations and educational institutions. Public charities include most organizations you might consider a charity, from national relief organizations, to your alma mater, to your local arts council.

Fidelity Charitable maintains a database of public charities that includes the most up-to-date information from the IRS. However, public charity status does not guarantee that a grant recommendation will be approved to any particular organization. Under policies set by the Fidelity Charitable Trustees, Fidelity Charitable conducts a robust review of each grant recommendation to ensure grants are made to IRS-qualified public charities, that those public charities use those granted funds solely for proper charitable purposes, and that grants do not confer impermissible benefits on donors or on any other person. Fidelity Charitable reserves the right to perform additional due diligence and to decline to make a recommended grant to a charitable organization.

A grant can still be recommended to such an organization but will require additional research to ensure its qualification status. Including a contact name and phone number for the charity if you have one could help expedite the research process.