How Fidelity Investments Built America’s Biggest Charity

The tax return of America’s biggest charity runs more than 5,000 pages. It details $10 billion in donations to tens of thousands of ­nonprofits, including youth centers, theater companies and soup kitchens. At least 1,300 Baptist churches are listed, as are Planned Parenthood, the Environmental Defense Fund and Teach for America. Page 738 of Schedule I shows $100,000 flowing to Puppies & Golf Inc.

The return reveals something else, too: hundreds of millions of dollars of transfers to entities linked to financial services firms such as Morgan Stanley, Schwab and Vanguard.