We were joined by Sarah Gelfand, vice president for social impact programs, and Kristen Robinson Darcy, senior vice president, service and marketing, of Fidelity Charitable®. The conversation was moderated by Una Osili, associate dean for research and international programs at the IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
Established in 1991, Fidelity Charitable is the nation’s top grantmaker, distributing $5.2 billion to charities in 2018. The organization works with more than 200,000 donors and provides programs that make charitable giving accessible, simple, and effective.
Sarah and Kristen shared their expertise on donor-advised funds and impact investing, and leveraged their perspectives at one of the world’s largest grantmakers to share unique insights on the trends and future of philanthropy.
About Sarah Gelfand
Sarah Gelfand is vice president for social impact programs for Fidelity Charitable®, an independent public charity that has helped donors support 278,000 nonprofit organizations with nearly $35 billion in grants. The mission of Fidelity Charitable® is to grow the American tradition of philanthropy by providing programs that make charitable giving accessible, simple and effective. Ms. Gelfand assumed her current role in 2018.
As vice president for social impact programs, Ms. Gelfand is responsible for delivering customized philanthropic solutions to donors and supporting the organization’s impact investing programs. She also oversees a grant-making program for the Fidelity Charitable Board of Trustees. Prior to this role, she supported the design and delivery of Fidelity Charitable donor programs and sustainability efforts.
Before joining Fidelity Charitable in 2015, Ms. Gelfand was deputy director of innovations in healthcare at Duke University, where she worked directly with a global network of healthcare entrepreneurs, corporations, foundations, and government partners. Prior to that, she was a founding director of the Global Impact Investing Network, a nonprofit organization focused on scaling the impact investing industry.
Sarah previously worked in product development, business development, and strategic planning with several technology companies. She has conducted public health research in malaria, HIV/AIDS, and cancer, among other areas.
Ms. Gelfand serves as a technical advisor to the Global Impact Investing Network. She also volunteers as a board member for both Reinvestment Partners, an affordable housing organization in Durham, NC, and the Primary Care Development Corporation, a lender to primary healthcare organizations around the country. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Mathematics from Brown University and a Master of Science (MSc) in Statistics from the University of Washington.
About Kristen Robinson Darcy
Kristen Robinson Darcy is senior vice president of service and marketing at Fidelity Charitable®, an independent public charity that has helped donors support more than 278,000 nonprofit organizations with nearly $35 billion in grants. The mission of Fidelity Charitable® is to grow the American tradition of philanthropy by providing programs that make charitable giving accessible, simple and effective. Ms. Robinson assumed her current position in 2018.
Ms. Robinson brings a passion for donors and innovative digital solutions to her work managing the development of donor and advisor experience, expansion, and retention strategies. She leads integrated teams in service and marketing that support and improve the donor experience for 200,000 donors nationwide.
Prior to joining Fidelity Charitable, Ms. Robinson was a leader in the business transformation efforts for Personal Investing, a unit of Fidelity Investments that provides retail brokerage, managed accounts, and other financial products and services to millions of individual investors.
The majority of her 10-year career at Fidelity Investments was spent as senior vice president of digital experience for Personal Investing, leading several digital innovation initiatives including the new mobile app, a digital advisor, engaging digital educational experiences for millennial and women investors, and new digital tools for over 10,000 customer facing associates.
Before joining Fidelity Investments in 2007, Ms. Robinson held senior-level executive positions in multiple start-ups, including leading global multichannel distribution, product development, client experience / services and operations for security identity and credential bureau market disruptor Geotrust (acquired by Verisign) and as managing director for a smart card software company in Hamburg, Germany.
Earlier in her career, she held several sales, operations and service leadership roles at Global Crossing. She has a Bachelor of science degree from Bentley University and a Masters of business administration (MBA) from MIT Sloan School of Management.