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Founding and History
Donor Revolt for Charity Reform is an open letter campaign that began in April 2024. It called for regulatory reforms to charitable-foundation rules and to the rules concerning donor-advised funds. The letter was signed by over 150 wealthy donors and received media attention when it was launched. As of July 2025, the open letter’s website still existed and was affiliated with left-of-center groups, but its specific action steps to achieve its stated goals were not clear. 1 2 3
Affiliated Groups
Donor Revolt for Charity Reform has declared affiliation with left-of-center groups that share its goals to “democratize” philanthropic giving and accelerate the disbursement of funds. As of 2025, these left-of-center groups included Patriotic Millionaires, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), IPS’s Inequality.org, Solidaire Action, the Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute, Resource Generation, the Decolonizing Wealth Project, and #HalfMyDaf (Half my Donor Advised Fund). 1
As part of the campaign, the Institute for Policy Studies released a report in 2024 attacking groups it alleged opposed to reforming the charitable sector, specifically for lobbying against the proposed 2021 Accelerating Charitable Efforts Act. The report specifically targeted the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, Charles Schwab Corporation, Community Foundation Awareness Initiative, and Philanthropy Roundtable, among other organizations that opposed the bill. The report also claimed that over $11 million had been spent since 2018 concerning donor-advised fund regulation proposals as of 2024. 4
Views
Donor Revolt for Charity Reform argues that wealth has become more concentrated in America and that this has resulted in charitably giving becoming “less democratic.” The campaign proposes regulatory changes to the tax code and to the rules governing charitable foundations and donor-advised funds (DAFs). In general, the campaign contends that the current regulatory structure allows and incentivizes the hoarding of wealth, rather than it being paid out for charitable work. 1
Donor Revolt’s proposals include increasing the minimum annual payout of a foundation’s assets from five to seven percent, rising to 10 percent if the foundation has over $50 million in assets. It also argues that payments to family members running the foundation should not count towards this payout, and neither should contributions to donor-advised funds. It advocates that donor-advised funds be required to pay out funds within five years of receiving them and that the sponsors that house the fund be required to provide disaggregated reports on each funding account’s grant activity. 1
Notable Signers
Notable signers of the letter included Abigail Disney, the grand-niece of Walt Disney; Scott Wallace, the grandson of former Vice President and agribusiness titan Henry Wallace; and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, the granddaughter of Texas oil tycoon H.L. Hunt and founder and board member of several left-of-center groups including Way to Win and Solidaire. 3