The Donor Advised Fund Research Collaborative recently released the most extensive national independent study of DAFs to date.
“The study reveals that DAFs are varied and flexible philanthropic vehicles that support a wide range of giving patterns and preferences,” the researchers wrote in their report.
The most common types of DAF sponsors are national programs, religious organizations, and community foundations.
The Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties has more than 200 DAFs. The foundation can accept a variety of gift types, including cash, stocks, real estate, land, or other assets for these funds. It also offers an online fund management tool that allows individuals to make distributions, recommend grants, donate to the fund or to research giving opportunities.
These fund types direct both modest and substantial amounts to charitable organizations. The most common grant amount distributed each year ranged from $10,000 to $50,000 with about 36 percent of active DAFs giving in that range, according to the study.
Almost all the DAFs were advised by families or individuals, and more than 90 percent had a succession plan in place. Most of the contributions to these funds are concentrated toward the end of the year. But grants are made throughout the year.
The researchers showed that DAFs are a mid-range philanthropic vehicle, allowing for larger donations than a typical household yet smaller than those establishing a private foundation.
In 2019, H. Daniel Heist, an assistant professor of nonprofit management and social impact at the George W. Romney Institute for Public Service and Ethics at Brigham Young University, and Danielle Vance-McMullen, an assistant professor of public policy and nonprofit management at DePaul University, co-founded the research collaborative. They partnered with two other researchers to lead the study and worked with GivingTuesday to store and analyze data.
