Democratizing Donor-Advised Funds

Portraits of all kinds of individuals hang in gilded frames on a bold patterned wallpaper. They're average people in the place of honor—donors involved in DAFs for everyone.
October 5, 2020
4 minutes
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You get a DAF! YOU get a DAF! And You get a DAF!

If you know your DAFs, you know that donor-advised funding is growing with breathtaking speed. Charities are receiving money from DAFs at nearly the same velocity as private foundations.

Recently, Justin impressed us with some off-the-cuff DAF facts that we didn't know:

  • Today, there are more than 750,000 DAFs seeded with over $120B to be given to charities, not invested. ...And both of those numbers are growing.
  • Although private foundations have 9X more assets than DAFs, DAFs make up 42% of giving between the two.
  • #HalfMyDAF is challenging DAF owners to pledge half the funds in their DAF to charity by September 30, 2020, and they'll match up to $25K to each charity. What private foundations are committing to something like that?
  • Fundraising through DAFs is far more efficient than raising from foundations. DAF funds don't take 9 months to get a "Yes" or "No".
  • DAFs are designed to be given, not managed, meaning DAF owners aren't building a team to handle investments or stressing over an endowment. They're just giving.

Even with those sunshine-y DAF presentation points, most DAFs require an initial investment of thousands of dollars and boast average account sizes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. These tools for easy giving management have traditionally only been for those who qualify.

Who QUALIFY. To GIVE. Sounds wonky, right?

But today's everyone's lucky day, friend, because DAFs are now within reach for everyone! Millie, a workplace giving platform, makes it possible to open your own DAF for $20.

To celebrate this huge step toward democratization in philanthropy, Funraise CEO and Co-founder, Justin Wheeler, sat down with Millie's founder, Rachel Klausner for one of the most enthusiastic, pivotal, pinpointing-a-need conversations we've seen.

After trading a few DAF factoids, Rachel and Justin got to the heart of the matter, discussing topics like...

  • unparalleled access to donors through workplace giving
  • the effect of matching donations on company culture
  • making matching donations less manual, even for small companies
  • how letting nonprofits tell their own story promotes equity and impact

And at the end of this (lucky) day, equity in philanthropy and the democratization of giving is something that benefits us all, just as the movement for Black lives advances our society as a whole and the health of our citizens reflects the health of our nation. There's nothing left to do but get to work building your movement!

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