Why donor-advised funds
How to communicate the benefits of DAFs to your clients.
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How to communicate the benefits of DAFs to your clients.
Last updated
Was this helpful?
DAFs are quickly becoming the preferred way to give. Over 25% of all charitable dollars now flow through DAFs each year. Given their advantages, it’s no surprise.
Donor-advised funds are a powerful giving vehicle that can help your clients:
Optimize their tax deductions
Receive tax benefits from donation of appreciated assets
Grow their charitable balance tax-free
As a trusted stakeholder in your clients' financial journey, you have the power to invite your clients into a richer philanthropic life through your custom giving program.
We recommend leveraging this 2-Pager with clients as collateral to help you introduce them to your firm's custom giving program:
Though Charityvest for Advisors has been designed with simplicity in mind, this may be the first time that some of your clients are encountering the concept of donor-advised funds.
Generally speaking, though donor-advised funds are a powerful strategic giving tool, they can be challenging to describe.
A donor-advised fund is a tax-deductible financial account for giving. A phrase we like to use to help people understand them is "it's like a 401k, but for giving".
Wondering how to talk about DAFs without saying "DAFs"?
We recommend you initially explain the concept of donor-advised funds to your clients so that they understand the legal structure of their donor-advised fund account. However, for some clients, it may be beneficial to refer to their DAF as a "giving account". Throughout this guide, we will use "donor-advised fund" and "giving account" interchangeably.
When approaching your clients with your firm's custom giving program, we recommend these to help explain what donor-advised funds are and how they can help clients achieve their ambitions of generosity:
to connect your client's giving situation to the implementation of a donor-advised fund.
that break down complex aspects of donor-advised funds by topic.
with collections of articles that detail best practices around purposeful giving.
that offers a comprehensive explanation of donor-advised funds.
Curious to learn more about your firm's custom DAF program? Contact your firm's program manager for program-related matters or Charityvest () for platform-related matters.