Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust (MS GIFT) is a tax-exempt provider of donor-advised funds (DAF) operated by Morgan Stanley, a multinational wealth management, investment, and research firm headquartered in New York City. ^{1 2}

MS GIFT allows individuals to make contributions to charities of their choice while also investing in Morgan Stanley’s investment portfolios. ³

Background

Individuals can contribute to Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust either with cash or appreciated assets or with assets like real estate, art, commodities, or stock pending approval. All contributions to the donor-advised funds are managed by Morgan Stanley as investments, meaning that they have the potential for growth. As the contributions are tax-free, the growth is tax-free as well and can be re-contributed to the charities the participating individuals selected. MS GIFT requires that donors give a minimum of $25,000 in cash or assets in order to start an account. All contributions become the property of MS GIFT and cannot be restricted in use by the donor once they have made the contribution. ⁴

Donors can choose the timing of the grants and whether the grants will record their names or be made anonymously. ⁵ Grant recipients are given a letter from the board of MS GIFT explaining the purpose of the grant and the name of the account or the donor. ⁶

Morgan Stanley GIFT Cures

Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust’s “Cures” program is dedicated to medical philanthropy. It offers donors interested in funding medicine and medical research the opportunity to invest in drug development and research in different areas such as Alzheimer’s, cancers, diabetes, and respiratory diseases. The Cures program collaborates with the Harrington Discovery Institute, a medical research center affiliated with University Hospitals, a nonprofit academic medical institution in Cleveland, Ohio. ^{7 8}

Criticism

A column written by Alan Cantor in 2018 at the Chronicle of Philanthropy criticized the lack of transparency of investment bank-associated donor-advised funds (DAFs). Cantor claimed that funds like Morgan Stanley’s are part of “Wall Street’s takeover of the charitable world” and quoted EO Tax Journal editor Paul Streckfus on how charitable organizations hesitate to critique donor-advised funds. According to Streckfus, charitable groups which speak out against donor-advised funds “siphoning off billions of dollars” from the contributions “into investment accounts” might get removed from donor-advised funds’ lists of potential recipients. ⁹

Funding

According to filings with the IRS, in 2019 Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust had a total revenue of $1,387,889,904, total expenses of $447,456,510, and net assets of $2,722,841,043. ¹⁰

In September 2020 it was announced that MS GIFT would begin collaborating with the Jewish Future Pledge, an initiative that encourages Jewish donors to commit fifty percent of their charitable estates to Jewish or Israel-related causes. ¹¹

According to the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies, MS GIFT gave at least 16 grants to other providers of donor-advised funds associated with commercial firms each year from 2015 to 2019. ¹²

Donors have used MS GIFT to contribute to a number of causes involved in politics and government, such as CalMatters, ¹³ CDC Foundations, ¹⁴ Campaign Legal Center, ¹⁵ and United Way of the Plains. ¹⁶

Leadership

As of 2019, Melanie Schnoll-Begun was the president of Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust and Carol van Atten was the chair of the board. It had 11 other board members. ¹⁷

1. “A Smarter Approach to Charitable Giving.” Morgan Stanley. Accessed 22 July 2022. https://www.morganstanley.com/campaigns/wealth-management/gift.
2. “What We Do.” Morgan Stanley. Accessed 22 July 2022. https://www.morganstanley.com/what-we-do
3. “A Smarter Approach to Charitable Giving.” Morgan Stanley. Accessed 22 July 2022. https://www.morganstanley.com/campaigns/wealth-management/gift.
4. “A Smarter Approach to Charitable Giving.” Morgan Stanley. Accessed 22 July 2022. https://www.morganstanley.com/campaigns/wealth-management/gift.
5. “A Smarter Approach to Charitable Giving.” Morgan Stanley. Accessed 22 July 2022. https://www.morganstanley.com/campaigns/wealth-management/gift.
6. ^[1] “A Smarter Approach to Charitable Giving.” Morgan Stanley. Accessed 22 July 2022. https://www.morganstanley.com/campaigns/wealth-management/gift.
7. “GIFT Cures.” Morgan Stanley. Accessed 22 July 2022. https://msgiftcures.donorgift.org/.
8. “About.” Harrington Discovery Institute. Accessed 22 July 2022. https://www.harringtondiscovery.org/about/about.
9. ^[1] Cantor, Alan. “What’s Behind the Curtain? We Still Don’t Know.” AlanCantorConsulting; originally Chronicle of Philanthropy. 12 March 2018. Accessed 23 July 2022. https://www.alancantorconsulting.com/2018/03/whats-behind-the-curtain-we-still-dont-know/.
10. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990). Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding. 2019. Part I. Lines 12, 18, 22.
11. “Jewish Future Pledge Announces Collaboration with Morgan Stanley GIFT to Advance Faith-Based Giving Initiative.” PR Newswire
12. Collins, Chuck; Flannery, Helen. “More Evidence of Warehousing of Wealth in Donor-Advised Funds.” Institute for Policy Studies, 19 August 2021. Accessed 23 July 2022. https://ips-dc.org/more-evidence-of-warehousing-of-wealth-in-donor-advised-funds/
13. “How We’re Funded.” CalMatters. Accessed 23 July 2022. https://calmatters.org/about/funding/#j-supporters.
14. Bryant, Michael. “The Case Against the CDC As We Know It.” Brownstone, 16 May 2022. Accessed 23 July 2022. https://brownstone.org/articles/the-case-against-the-cdc-as-we-know-it/.
15. “Donors.” Campaign Legal Center. 12 September 2020. Accessed 23 July 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20200912144351/https://campaignlegal.org/about/support/donors.
16. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer – United Way of the Plains. Accessed 23 July 2022. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text_search?q=united+way+of+the+plains.
17. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990). Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding. 2019. Part VII. Section A.