Vanguard Group

Congress ended the week poised to revive a popular tax provision that encourages charitable donations of individual-retirement-account assets.

The charitable IRA rollover provision, which expired at the end of 2013, allowed IRA owners and IRA beneficiaries 70½ or older to donate up to $100,000 in IRA assets to charity without reporting the withdrawal as taxable income. Experts expect Congress to revive the provision, as it has several times in recent years.

Fidelity Investments, best known for mutual funds and retirement plans, now oversees more in charitable contributions than much better-known philanthrophic organizations such as the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross, and it is on the verge of surpassing the United Way. Last year, Fidelity's nonprofit, Fidelity Charitable, brought in $3.7 billion from clients, placing it second on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s rankings of the country’s largest charities, just behind United Way.

Donor-advised funds have made it easier for moderately wealthy people to think of themselves — organically — as charitable investors and function with charitable giving as a part of their investment mindsets. Whether you think DAFs pay out enough or not, their impact is in making charitable giving for moderately wealthy people easier, more strategic and more natural. For charities interested in reaching individual donors, getting comfortable with donors who give through donor-advised funds has to be a top priority in the new world of fundraising.

Blackbaud announced that it rose to number 198 on this year’s InformationWeek 500, an annual listing of the nation’s most innovative users of business technology. This is the second consecutive year that Blackbaud has been included on the list, which it debuted on at 209 last year.

Blackbaud was recognized for completing 16 IT initiatives that helped establish better relationships with its clients.