National Study on DAFs — DAF Research Collaborative

The 2024
National Study on Donor Advised Funds

Project Overview

This project represents the most extensive independent study on DAFs to date.

Thanks to the collective efforts of 111 DAF programs that voluntarily provided anonymized data to the research team, the dataset covers nine years of activity from more than 50,000 accounts, with over 600,000 inbound contributions to DAFS and more than 2.25 million outbound grants from DAFs.

Areas of Inquiry

Individual Giving Using DAFs

Because public data on DAFs is only available at the sponsor organization level, fundamental policy-relevant questions about donor-level and account-level DAF behavior remain unanswered. In particular, questions about the patterns of donor contributions to and grants from DAFs (and how these patterns change over time) remain unanswered. Such questions are top-of-mind for leaders and policymakers eager to understand donor behavior and encourage increased philanthropy using this important and growing giving vehicle.

Response to the Giving Environment

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the potential role of DAFs as charitable savings accounts that can be used to support increased giving as needs arise. Previous research indicates that DAFs may allow donors to sustain giving during recessions, even when personal income drops (Heist and Vance-McMullen 2019). DAFRC will explore the patterns of DAF giving following shocks such as recessions, disasters, and tax law changes and will also use these shocks to better understand the causal impact of DAFs on total giving in the United States.

Variations in Giving Among DAF Donors

DAFs are used by a wide variety of donors, and these donors use the flexibility provided by DAFs to implement many different philanthropic giving strategies. Initial analysis of organization-level data suggests that there is substantial heterogeneity in underlying DAF-user goals and decision making (Heist and Vance-McMullen 2019). Different types of DAF Sponsors serve different mixes of donors. Understanding how demographic and organizational differences correlate with DAF donor behavior is crucial to developing a more nuanced understanding of the DAF landscape.

National Study on DAFs Advisory Committee

Dirk Bird (Jewish Federation of North America)

Elizabeth Boris (Urban Institute)

Kyle Caldwell (Council of Michigan Foundations)

Matthew L. Evans (United Philanthropy Forum)

Eileen Heisman (National Philanthropic Trust)

Jenn Holcomb (Council on Foundations)

Jasmine Marrow (Gates Foundation)

Melinda Mosier (New Hampshire Charitable Foundation)

Laura Seaman (League of California Community Foundations)

Steve Seleznow (Arizona Community Foundation)

Stephen Sherman (Philanthropy Southeast)

Gideon Taub (Ren)

The 2024 National Study on Donor Advised Funds