Trent Ricker: Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Go Beyond Fundraising podcast. I’m Trent Ricker, the CEO and Chief Strategy Officer at AGP. And with me today is Sarah Hartke. Say hello, Sarah.
Sarah Hartke: Hi everyone, excited to be here.
Trent Ricker: Excited to have you. We’ve got a fun topic today on DAFs, and you and I have had the opportunity to work quite a bit on DAFs lately with some of our clients. And so, we’re seeing the landscape change a bit. If you’re a CDO wondering whether DAFs deserve a line in your plan, I think this podcast is for you. We are seeing it evolve a bit.
So today I’m going to play the interviewer. Sarah has really been immersing herself in DAFs. And so, we’ll kind of take it from there a little bit. But I think one of the things that’s most interesting to me is that DAFs now represent about 15 % of all giving in this country. And I think what we’ve seen is a lot of organizations are still kind of treating it as a channel, as a mailbox, if you will.
And so, we want to kind of break that down. In that, the other thing that I thought was surprising, Sarah, as we get going is that two-thirds of DAF gifts are under $1,000. That was surprising to me. What does that tell you about who’s actually using the DAFs?
Sarah Hartke: I think it’s telling us that this isn’t just for the ultra-wealthy, that people were seeing gifts at $50. You know, the median gift is somewhere around $300, average gifts around $4,000. So, you know, that’s annual giving donors, mid-level giving donors. Yes, some planned giving donors, and it’s kind of running the gamut, too. I think the average age is about 67. But it’s also starting to skew younger because we’re seeing that younger donors like using DAFs.
Trent Ricker: Yeah, that’s interesting. So, what do you think the picture is that most fundraisers have in their head when they hear DAF donor and is it how is it wrong?
Sarah Hartke: I think they think of the DAF donor as maybe a planned giving donor and someone that doesn’t need stewardship and cultivation, maybe someone who, well, they’ve identified themselves as making a gift so we don’t need to keep sending them, you know, other communications and even solicitations.
As the research shows that DAF donors, they’re not just giving through DAFs, they’re giving directly, they’re giving through IRA rollovers – they’re giving in other ways. So, it’s just one of the vehicles that they’re using, but it’s not the only vehicle that they’re using. So, I think that’s somewhat of a myth you know.
Trent Ricker: I think for me earlier on, I always felt like a DAF was a buffer. And I think earlier on with DAFs, I always felt like it was in, you know, if the donor was going to use Fidelity as a DAF and then make a grant to an organization, they could stay at arm’s length, right? I thought they maybe would be a more sophisticated philanthropist, maybe larger dollars. But I think a lot of that’s changed, right? To your point, it’s really easy now to go to the big guy, Schwab or Fidelity or Vanguard, open up a DAF, and then put in, you know, kind of a disciplined amount and still give similarly to how you gave.
And frankly, they’re not, we’ll get to that in a minute, they’re not anonymous anymore, really. I think that the industry shifted a bit on that. So, and there’s another myth I think of that too, because I think a lot of people think of a DAF donor, to your point, maybe as somebody who’s thinking about estate planning, wealth management. How many of these donors did we find out are actually working through wealth advisors?
Sarah Hartke: It’s a low percentage. It’s below 10% that are actually working with advisors. Now that’s from a survey of donors from the DAF Research Collaborative. And I think it’s really interesting to know that advisors are still very important and increasingly they’re going to be important. But for organizations that have an easy tool or have communicated with their donors that they can give through their DAF directly, I think that it’s showing that people who are making a DAF gift are pretty committed to that organization and to that cause. And if you make it easy on them, you know, they’re not going to wait and go through an advisor. They’re just going to make the gift directly.
Trent Ricker: Now, it dawns on me, there may be some listeners that think of the DAF donor and they’re confused. So why don’t we explain a little bit what a DAF is? And then I kind of want to get some of the key metrics down because there are almost 3.6 million DAFs, but I think that number is skewed by some, you know, workplace giving processor type accounts. So, you strip those, there’s probably close to 700,000, but let’s just define the DAF for the average person who might not understand the mechanics of a DA, Sarah.
Sarah Hartke: Sure. So, it’s a charitable giving account and it’s administered by a 501(c)3-sponsored charity. And you mentioned some of the big ones, Trent. Increasingly, there are community foundations that are sponsors. There are faith-based sponsors. So, if people are looking for local impact there are so many different sponsors. And yes, the ones you mentioned, and also National Philanthropic Trust, they’re more well known but there are requirements to be a sponsoring charity. So, people can feel pretty secure, you know, about using those sponsors to make their DAF contributions.
So once you fund the DAF as the donor, you get the charitable deduction then at the time of funding. And then the sponsor is responsible for administering, they’re responsible for growing it, and they have legal control over the contribution. So, it is irrevocable. I think that’s a misunderstanding that some people have. Once you fund the DAF, you know, you can’t take that money back out, but you are the advisor who can make recommendations for the charities that you want to receive the grants.
Trent Ricker: Yeah, that’s an interesting and appropriate explanation. The tax implications are such that when somebody makes a donation to their DAF, they get that deduction in the year they make the donation to the DAF contribution. Excuse me, I wouldn’t use the donation there when they actually grant that to a charity, that is not when the deduction takes place. So, they could actually sit on those for quite some time. It is used as a tax planning vehicle, but I think that’s also a misnomer. I think some people, you know, again, particularly at the bottom part of the pyramid, don’t think of it that way.
I want to hit on something that you said about wealth advisors and now how much more accessible they are. I remember many years ago working with the National Christian Foundation, which is a big DAF, right? And what they do is work with wealthy individuals who are Christian-minded and they kind of help advise them as to where they could give to worthy faith-based organizations. Makes a lot of sense. And typically, they’re shepherding some pretty big estates. And I think that was a good example. Earlier on, the misnomer was either you are wealthy enough to be handled by someone who is going to work with you in that way, or a wealth advisor would say part of your estate planning should be where your philanthropic dollars might go, and a DAF may make sense, but that’s really evolved now. So, the median account today is about what?
Sarah Hartke: The median size of a DAF account is about $25,000 to $30,000.
Trent Ricker: Okay, yeah. So, you know, it’s low five figures, right? And I think I’ve seen that half of all accounts hold less than $50,000. That’s not necessarily the type of individual like we were talking about that’s going to be working with a wealth advisor. And I think this misnomer that the DAF gift going in the black hole is pretty much gone.
I think that everybody it’s accessible. And I think that those, you know, the big guys, Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, have done a really nice job at making it accessible, easy for people to do. So, I think it’s turned into a bit more of a mass market vehicle. And I think that the sector to some extent is, and that we’re getting better at it, but it kind of misfiled it under kind of a major giving or an indicator. So, let’s transition a little bit, Sarah. If the gift, median gift is below $1,000, maybe even a few $100, did you say $300 is the median gift somewhere in there?
Sarah Hartke: Yep, $300.
Trent Ricker: Okay, so if somebody at the end of this year, we’re having this interview in October, as we’re ending up for the end of the year. Somebody wants to give a $300 gift. Where are we losing that right now?
Sarah Hartke: If they want to make it directly to an organization, I think we’re losing it if they can’t easily find how to make a gift to that organization. You know, if they haven’t received any communications from the organization, their website, newsletters, any other places where they say, you can also make a gift through your DAF. I think we’re really missing it there.
And then if it is on the website, you know, in the donation page, if it’s not easy, if it’s a too many steps in the process that they might, you know, just feel like it’s too complicated or onerous and not, you know, continue and they might abandon the process.
Trent Ricker: I think that’s really key. Now that we’ve seen this become more of annual fund money, it strikes me as I’ve looked at more donation forms and even many of our clients, we’re actually working with some of our clients on, you know, the implementation of technology to be able to take DAFs.
It dawned on me the other day when I was looking at one form and comparing against peers. If you don’t have a DAF option, that’s like you saying, I only take Visa, right? I don’t take MasterCard or American Express, right? I think Costco, I think, you know, has that partnership with Visa or whatever else. Can’t use your MasterCard there.
That would that would just seem to be unreasonable. So, we’re we meaning the organizations that aren’t making it easiest are missing out on that. So, what does it look like on the giving forms for an organization to get it right? You’ve got all sorts of options. What would it look like for a DAF option today?
Sarah Hartke: Well, the ideal thing would be for them to have an easy giving tool right on their form so they can, you know, one click and have a drop-down menu and be able to make their gift right through the donation form.
Trent Ricker” There’s a couple vendors out there, several I guess, right?
Sarah Hartke: Yeah, there are a number of tools and platforms. You know, some of the technology I think is off-putting for some organizations because they think it’s overly complicated. But DAF giving in particular is fairly streamlined. And there are a number of pay options that they can use, that they can install right on their on their own websites to use.
Trent Ricker: Yeah, and I think that’s an important take away for our audience today. We’re talking about DAFs today, but the payment options in general. If there’s one thing that you can do, if you aren’t already, of course, take your credit cards, take your ACH, but you need to take PayPal, you need to take Apple Pay or Google Pay, and you need to be able to take DAF. You need to meet your constituent where they are for the wallet that they want to give from. I’m an audience of one here in this focus group, but I don’t always carry my credit cards around with me.
So, I do have a note somewhere in my phone or something like that, but I much prefer to give a donation or make a purchase through Apple Pay because it’s convenient, it’s secure and so we need to reduce friction. And today we’re talking about DAFs, and I think we’re leaving a lot of money on the table. If in fact, talk about the opposite, if they don’t have that, what do you usually see, Sarah, for the organizations that are asking you to make their gift through a DAF?
Sarah Hartke: Well, if they don’t have kind of an easy pay option, then they have to kind of leave the website. They might have to download a form to contact their advisor. So, there’s a many step process. And if they’re serious about it, you know, hopefully they would have somebody at least on staff who could help to walk the donor through it and steward them at least and follow up with them on the process. Otherwise, they may leave and not come back if it’s not easy enough for them to give. If they’re planning to make a sizable gift, I would, you know, assume that they are pretty dedicated to that organization. So, stewardship, you know, I can’t say enough about how stewardship.
Trent Ricker: Yeah.
Sarah Hartke: You know, if you’re not set up right now to accept easy DAF Gifts, at least educate your staff, train your staff to be able to see that, you know, someone’s trying to make a DAF gift and have someone who can really help to facilitate that at the organization.
Trent Ricker: I think that’s all excellent stuff. I think it’s, I’ll be bold enough to say I think it’s irresponsible for any organization to not have the option. To your point, I think the loyal donor will probably put up with some inconvenience in order to still get that gift to where it belongs. If they’ve been giving regularly and they want to give that $1,000 year end gift through their DAF, they probably will jump through those hoops. But the first-time giver or the newer donor likely won’t. And even in peer-to-peer or other events, galas, etc., the option to give and making that easier is critically important.
Otherwise, my belief is if somebody, let’s use cancer for a moment, if somebody wanted to give you recently had a family member diagnosed with cancer. It’s now become something that you want to support. You have a DAF, and at the end of the year, you want to give a $500 gift to a reputable cancer research and treatment organization. There’s lots of them out there that are worthy. You do your research and you have yet to give a gift.
If you have a DAF, the likelihood is you’re going to give where it’s going to be a bit easier. If you did have on #1 on your list and you went to get to your DAF and it’s like, call us or go to Schwab and pick this drop down and then call us back and let us know that you actually gave the gift, you might move to #2 on your list. And that’s why I’m saying it’s darn near irresponsible. It’s like not accepting credit cards anymore. Would you agree with that?
Sarah Hartke: I would agree. You know, and I was thinking earlier about DAFs and how this has really kind of changed the giving landscape. And I was trying to think back to a point in fundraising where we really had something like this that has grown so exponentially. I’m thinking back to it used to be that you would write a check. That was how you gave and then increasingly, there were new methods of payment. And so, when organizations started accepting credit card payments, like that was a big deal, but that was so many years ago at this point.
So, DAFs is really kind of, you know, the beginning of probably like the new age of giving and the simpler we can make it. I do think there are a lot of people that still don’t know what a DAF is. And so, when you don’t know what something is, there might be some mistrust or misunderstanding. So, the more organizations can communicate about DAFs, many of the great websites offer kind of a one-pager that explains what a DAF is. And there are a lot of educational tools that organizations can use too, not just for donors, but even for their own staff, because the staff needs to be working together, finance, operations, development – all of those teams, marketing. They all need to be working together to know what DAFs are and to be able to let everyone know that the organization can, you know, accept DAF gifts, but then also once they get DAF gifts, what do they do with it? How are they communicating with each other? How are they stewarding?
Trent Ricker: It reminds me of pulling up some stats that we were looking at earlier from our research. Fidelity grew; they’re about quarter of a million accounts. Might not say that’s a ton, but it’s up 55% since 2020 and up about 14%, a little less since 2025. That’s obviously outpacing other areas that we’re seeing where people might have their funds. I would also more than argue that somebody who, this is Captain Obvious here, somebody who opens a DAF is likely philanthropic. How about they are philanthropic because they’re doing it for that specific reason, right?
Sarah Hartke: Absolutely.
Trent Ricker: So, we have a more sophisticated philanthropic supporter that’s opening up a DAF, which makes it even more puzzling why we would make it difficult for that profiled donor to give a gift. We’ll get to it a little bit later because I think there’s some really interesting math on the donor quality speaks to it from that person who is more sophisticated. We’ll come back in a minute.
I touched on this, though, and I want to shift a little bit. You mentioned planned giving, and you and I have done some recent work in that space together DAF gifts can be a gift obviously during lifetime, but it’s clearly an indicator that somebody has a bequeathable asset, that DAF is going to go somewhere. They might name a trustee as a family member, or they might gift the actual death to a charity or so. But talk a little bit about the pillars of in-life gift and the bequest, because it sounds like I think people chase only the first.
Sarah Hartke Yeah, I mean, a DAF and even gifts at the mid-level generally, those are strong indications of commitment to the organization. So, and I think something too that’s happened over the past couple of years is we’ve been able to talk more about planned gifts, both in-life gifts and afterlife gifts because with the whole COVID epidemic, people had to have conversations because of what we are all faced with. So, I do think the language has changed a little bit more. And instead of thinking just of planned giving, organizations can think about kind of a broader spectrum of giving, both in life and for planning for later. And so, if organizations are educating their major gift officers and whomever it is that is having these conversations – and I wouldn’t say it should be just with the major gifts team – they could be more comfortable kind of talking about all of the different ways of not just DAFs, other non-cash gifts that they can make.
Trent Ricker: Stock, right?
Sarah Hartke: Stocks, assets, trusts and different types of gifts that they can make while they’re still alive and see the impact of their giving and still have enough money for them to continue with their life and see in real time the impact that their gifts can have.
Trent Ricker: I mean, that’s fascinating. And I think that the point is, is that DAF giving is a flag. It’s just not just revenue. If we go back to the vehicle, if somebody gives us a gift through a checking account, we know they have a checking account. If they give us through a credit card, we know they have a credit card. If they give to us online, we know they prefer to give to us online. If they prefer to mail us a check, etc.
If we know they have a DAF, it tells us something about them. It tells us they have a bequeathable asset. It tells us that we know it’s irrevocably committed to charity. This cannot compete with kids, right? So, I found it fascinating working with some of our clients and talking with some other organizations that the mindset is still in the major gift aspect. If I get a big gift, do you have a DAF? You don’t have a DAF? We’ll help you put a DAF together because when you get into a DAF, when you die, you can give it to us. Now, being a little bit facetious in that.
But on the flip side, if somebody has a DAF now and there’s a flag on it, what might we do as an organization, regardless of gift size, what does it tell us when somebody gives us a gift from the DAFs, Sarah?
Sarah Hartke: I think it tells us – and we should be thinking about this anyway – that we really should be stewarding this donor. They’ve shown, you know, you know, a desire to engage with the organization. DAF donors want to have, as all donors do, but they want to have an impact. And so, they’re raising their hand. And so, stewarding them, you know, making sure they’re still getting all of their communications, their newsletters, but someone should be picking up the phone and calling them if they haven’t already. And many shops know how to do that.
But, you know, it’s just it’s a signal like it is for a mid-level donor or even someone who’s approaching mid-level that, you know, they want a deeper relationship with the organization. And you’re right, it’s a signal that they have capacity, but the organization should also be doing a little bit more research on that donor too and finding out what they’re interested in specifically, you know, what other things they’ve engaged with. Obviously, how long they’ve been on the file and kind of what drove them to make that, you know, the DAF gift.
Trent Ricker: Yeah, I think it’s interesting how our work on planned giving and I think about, depending upon the organization, 60-80% of planned gifts were unknown to the organization before it was bequeathed. And we know, you know, in the space here that many of those donors are folks that gave consistently through the annual fund, and we didn’t realize the size of the estate, and they left some sort of sizable gift that could have been $30,000, $50,000, $500,000, or millions of dollars. Everybody’s got a story of somebody that got a really big gift from somebody who gave to him for 15 years and never gave more than $250, right? If we go back to the average, the median size, I should say, of a DAF being, let’s call it $30,000-ish, is that what I think you said, $27.000-$30,000 or something?
Sarah Hartke: Yeah, $25,000 to $30,000.
Trent Ricker: Yeah, so that’s even today, and I think it’s still early, so you could assume that that’s probably going to grow. I think any organization would surely take a $25,000 bequest.
One of the stats that I read that surprised me is it seems that nobody’s being asked what they’re doing with their DAF. And to your point, that ask, if we ask, what are you considering doing with the DAF as a succession plan.
I saw that about a quarter would say, well, yeah, I’ve got it all figured out. But 30% said they consider adding a charity to their succession plan if they were asked. That’s education as well. I don’t know if they fully realize that. They might think of it as a legacy to pass down to their children. Great. But if the person who owns the DAF really did want to give it to one of their philanthropic priorities, we need to ask them about that. So, it’s the, I believe, the single best behavioral signal for planned giving that most organizations right now are ignoring. And if we don’t make it easy for the annual giver to give, we can’t flag that individual, right?
Sarah Hartke: That’s right, that’s right.
Trent Ricker: So, I think about the in-life gifts. Tell me about how we would work with someone, an organization on their annual fund for in life giving, so that we can get more of those DAF gifts. What sorts of things might drive more DAF gifts?
Sarah Hartke: I think, you know, a lot of it’s about the culture and even how organizations are communicating with their donors. I don’t think it’s too early with the first welcome packet.
Many organizations talk to donors about thank you very much. These are all the ways you can give and they provide more information. And I think that that’s kind of the first conversation and then to kind of cultivate that so there’s this culture of philanthropy, if you will, within the organization that comes up through annual, mid-level and major giving where all staff feel comfortable communicating with donors about all the different ways that they can give during their lifetime.
And I think the more comfortable they are, you know, the more comfortable donors will be. You know, I have heard some people say, well, we don’t want to put a DAF checkbox on a reply form because it’ll be confusing or too much information. And I think organizations have to just start doing it, start testing it in places and see whether or not it impacts results. But I think that if they’re constantly communicating – I’ve seen a lot of great organizations putting it in their newsletter, maybe it’s once a quarter or a couple times a year – but really having a DAF feature so that everybody understands this is just another vehicle for giving. I think it’s a cultural and education understanding so that organizations make sure that everybody is kind of aligned and is communicating and messaging the same way for any donors that have questions about it.
Trent Ricker: I like where you went with that. And I don’t see it very often that an organization has, I think, as much a responsibility to educate about what a DAF is. They have that responsibility as much as it is to be able to accept a DAF gift. I think in an ideal situation on the giving page on a website, you would obviously have a DAF option. But I think it’d behoove them to say, “Don’t have a DAF? Interested in learning more? Click here.” to a page. Maybe once they give the gift, or perhaps if they give a gift by credit card on their receipt to educate about a DAF so that they can explain what it is – like we did earlier here. Not everybody understands it, but if you have a clear explanation and you can point them in the right direction to open a DAF and make it easier for them to give, I think that you’re doing all philanthropy a great service.
Larger organizations we’ve seen actually are white labeling their own DAFs because they know that there are major donors that don’t have a DAF, and if you can shepherd that giving into a DAF that is white labeled by you, you’re obviously increasing the likelihood that it will be bequeathed to you. I don’t think that’s a strategy that everybody has to do, but I think it’s an interesting one.
So even think about QR codes. A QR code that says, “Give through your DAF” through this QR code. “Learn more about DAFs.” QR codes are very low friction for people to learn more about that. Which reminds me, I said, we come back to it. Talk to me a little bit about the donor quality, the difference between a DAF donor and the non-DAF donor as it relates to their quality.
Sarah Hartke: Well, I think I’ve said this before, but it’s really someone who’s raising a hand and showing you that they’re committed to the organization. And it’s likely, I think, that a DAF donor is someone who has maybe volunteered or has engaged in some other way with the organization. But they have, you know, they’re very interested in the mission and what the organization is doing. And I’ve read some information about why DAF donors give and many of them give because they care about what’s happening in their local communities. They care about specific issues.
And you mentioned cancer earlier, it might be cancer, it might be some other disease or something that has touched them or their family personally. They give out of a sense that they have a responsibility to give back too. And so, I’m not saying that they are a better quality donor than someone else, but they’re definitely more engaged and committed to the causes that they support.
Trent Ricker: Yeah, I saw some stats that support that, and I think that’s all of our instinct, but these numbers were very encouraging to me. Retention, 59% for DAF Donors versus 46% for non-DAF, so a 13-point gap. It stands to reason, like you said, they’re more committed to the organization, right?
The median DAF gift is 12-times the median non-DAF gift. Let’s think about that for a minute. If you’re an organization and your annual fund and your average gift is $70, then you might expect the median DAF gift to be 700 or more. That’s significant, right? We saw that the average DAF gift grew from about $3,000 in 2021 to about $4,000 in 2025. So that’s telling you that’s the interesting aspect, a DAF. This might not be obvious to everyone, but the reason why Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab want you to invest in their DAFs is because they have more assets under management and they’re investing it. They’re investing it for you. That grows. So, it’s not just static. That’s important. So, the size of these accounts are going to get larger.
So, it’s very interesting, the quality of the donor. We’ve seen a study that said 94% of DAF donors sustained or increased their giving after opening their funds. So, it’s not, this is not competing for a channel. Which again, if you are creating friction, you’re leaving money on the table or opening the door for them to go to another organization.
I want to touch on very briefly here as we’re getting close to wrapping up. There was a bit of a myth, and a lot of organizations felt that it was difficult to identify who the donor is when they get from a DAF. Is that still a problem?
Sarah Hartke: I think it may be for organizations. I think there’s a couple misconceptions. I think, again, this can go back to education. I think sometimes when a DAF donor makes a gift anonymously, they mean to make it anonymously to the public, but not necessarily to the organization. And so, I think the organization thinks they want to be anonymous we’re not going to bother them. But I think, what I’m hearing is that a lot of sponsors will work with organizations if they have gifts or grants that have been made, and they will help the organization to identify the donor so that they can properly steward them.
So, I think that that myth is slowly breaking down, but there is some concern on the part of the organizations. Well, we can’t attribute these gifts because, you know, they’re showing the sponsor, but we don’t know who. And I think that they just have to commit to digging a little bit deeper and working with sponsors. And I think sponsors are more and more willing to work with organizations to try and identify exactly who those donors are, and then finding out, does this donor really want to be anonymous to the organization? And if so, to honor that. But if not, to educate, and that could be part of the education. We want to be able to thank you to just educate the donors about when they’re checking off. There was something else I heard that I wanted to bring up because it was something you were just talking about, Trent, and it’s repeat giving versus recurring giving.
Trent Ricker: Okay.
Sarah Hartke: And I hadn’t really thought about recurring giving with donors – DAF donors. At the summit I was at recently in Austin, they talked about, you know, a lot of DAF donors are repeat donors. So, they make a grant to an organization, and they’ll make subsequent grants to the organization.
There are also recurring options. The most popular one, I guess, is the annual recurring option. But there are other options for recurring, whether it’s monthly or quarterly. And that’s something maybe for another discussion, but it was something that I found to be very interesting that DAF donors want to keep hearing from the organization. And if you want to keep getting grants from these donors that you need to continue stewarding them and educating them, too.
Trent Ricker: Yeah. It’s fascinating. I think that the problem lies for most organizations in the back office. If somebody gives us a check or credit card, we have our typical caging mechanisms, and we have the ability to put it into our database very cleanly. The failure is usually coding and reconciliation, not privacy. I was surprised to see that less than 4% of DAF grants are anonymous. The names are in the files. The problem is, is that that’s a gift from Fidelity on behalf of Susie Smith. And if we’re not marking it on behalf of Susie Smith, we’re not certainly going to steward Fidelity.
Sarah Hartke: That’s right.
Trent Ricker: So I love your point. There is an option. I’ve seen Schwab’s on the back end. And if you give a gift to XYZ organization, you wanted to give it every year on this date, you can do so. But imagine Susie Smith giving $1,000 every November 1 and never getting a thank you. That would be ridiculous.
Sarah Hartke: Yes.
Trent Ricker: Right? So, and nobody listening to this would say that that’s good stewardship. I think the reality is we’re probably stewarding these folks pretty poorly because we’ve got more of a back office issue and a lack of a cohesive organizational strategy. So that’s a good kind of place to land our session today. If there was a couple of things, Sarah, what would you tell organizations today that they could go back to their office and make an impact in the next 30 days as it relates to their DAF strategy.
Sarah Hartke: I would say education. Start with education, educate your staff, make sure everybody understands what a DAF is, then do your own quick audit. You know, get on your website, try and make a gift, you know, pretend you’re a DAF Donor and go through that journey and see where you hit the roadblock.
You know, I think those are a couple things that you can do right off the bat. And then think about your communications. Where are you talking about DAFs? How are you talking about DAFs? And think about this great wealth transfer that’s happening and this technological age that we’re in now. Do you have the tools and do you, are you planning for and budgeting for the tools that will make giving easy to your organization?
Trent Ricker: There’s a few that I would I would suggest as well on top of that that are just like. Go to your website, like you said, and put it on the giving form. If you don’t have it, there are excellent vendors out there that could stand up this payment processing for you pretty quickly. So, seek them out and get that on your giving form. Second is to make sure that you’re coding and reconciling the DAF gift to the donor and not the sponsor.
This is again common sense, but I’m not seeing it happen because the work that we do with annual fund, there’s a gap in us getting that information back from people who gave to a DAF to get it into donor records when we’re trying to help out with segmentation. I would also say for the planned giving group is build that succession plan question into your script.
You know, you have a DAF, we know you have a DAF. What do you do with that DAF? That’s a totally reasonable question. I think one last thing that I would encourage folks to do, did it myself and I learned a lot. If you are a development officer – a director of annual fund — if you give anywhere more than a couple of hundred dollars per year right now, do yourself a favor and open up a DAF. Not necessarily that needs to become your giving vehicle, but because you need to learn how that works. And over time, you might actually want to use the DAF as a planning tool, but it might sound like a pain in the butt.
Open a DAF, put in $500 bucks, and a month later, give a gift to your workplace. Because many of us give to the workplace – see what that experience is like on the other side. Did you get an acknowledgement? Did you get stewarded? How did it receipt for you? There are differences for sure, because you’re getting it differently from Schwab or Fidelity.
But what is the relationship? So, I would really encourage you, touch it, feel it. This is part of your world. So do that.
Sarah Hartke: Yeah, that’s a great idea.
Trent Ricker: Any parting comments, Sarah?
Sarah Hartke: No, I mean, we could probably continue hosting episodes about DAFs because it’s evolving so quickly and there’s so many changes. And on the horizon, looking to 2027, like we were talking earlier, you know, there may be some legislative changes that wouldn’t impact giving or, you know, giving easily through a DAF. It might impact time limits on how long the money can sit inside the DAF before it has to be funded and things like that. But that could be further off, too. But, you know, I think the conversation about DAFs is just going to continue to elevate. And as more people become aware and do their research, I think it’s going to benefit a lot of organizations who really, you know, would appreciate getting the DAF grants sent to them.
Trent Ricker: Yeah.
Sarah Hartke: Absolutely.
Trent Ricker: We appreciate everybody listening. If you want to learn more about how DAFs can impact your Planned Giving, or more importantly, your annual funds, so we can get more folks that raise their hand, feel free to give us a call and we’d be happy to help you out in analyzing your program. Everybody have a great day.
Sarah Hartke: Thank you.
