I have just opened a donor-advised fund with Fidelity. It looks like the fees are based on a daily average, rather than whatever's in your account on fee-charging day. I transferred money from my savings account. I had to invest the money rather than leave it as cash. I invested it in the fund with the lowest fee, a total US stock fund, but I plan to send it right back out as soon as I notice it's in there. Except the contributions have to be made in increments of $5 (or $18). I also had to name my fund. I went with "Santa Claus."
There are other places I could have gone, but literally every single personal finance blogger I could find was using Vanguard, Fidelity, or Schwab. Or a combination (holy yikes, those people are rich!). I could not see that Schwab was better for me than Fidelity in any way, based on some comparison charts I found, so I went with Fidelity to pay them back for having free HSAs and to stay with a company I'm already using.
I did research other strategies, and in case these are of interest to you, here are some other ideas on how to contribute anonymously: * Google One Today - an app of some kind (okay, boomer!) * Charity Navigator - Research places that let you opt out of having your information sold. But it looks like they'll still send you their own info. * Donate by money order - This may be the best low-cost idea: just send mail orders to your charities and leave your name off them and leave your return address off your envelope. That's one stamp plus the fee for the money orders, which I read is generally cheaper at retail establishments than at banks or the post office. I am not up for dealing with that this year (you never really know if you got the right address, and they actually got it). I assume the money order receipt or copy or whatever you get is good enough for tax purposes.
no subject
There are other places I could have gone, but literally every single personal finance blogger I could find was using Vanguard, Fidelity, or Schwab. Or a combination (holy yikes, those people are rich!). I could not see that Schwab was better for me than Fidelity in any way, based on some comparison charts I found, so I went with Fidelity to pay them back for having free HSAs and to stay with a company I'm already using.
I did research other strategies, and in case these are of interest to you, here are some other ideas on how to contribute anonymously:
* Google One Today - an app of some kind (okay, boomer!)
* Charity Navigator - Research places that let you opt out of having your information sold. But it looks like they'll still send you their own info.
* Donate by money order - This may be the best low-cost idea: just send mail orders to your charities and leave your name off them and leave your return address off your envelope. That's one stamp plus the fee for the money orders, which I read is generally cheaper at retail establishments than at banks or the post office. I am not up for dealing with that this year (you never really know if you got the right address, and they actually got it). I assume the money order receipt or copy or whatever you get is good enough for tax purposes.