GuideStar Blog

I view January and February as a test run of sorts, before we really embark on a new year and new resolutions. This may feel especially true as we’re still figuring out what happened in 2018. Last year we saw lower year-end fundraising results. We saw a decline in the number of donors who give in the lower to middle end of the giving range. And whether those developments have anything to do with changes to the tax law remains a question.

Last year, Giving USA’s Annual Report called donor-advised funds (DAFs) one of the “hottest topics in the philanthropic community.”¹ Between 2007 and 2016, assets in donor-advised funds nationwide skyrocketed from $32 billion to $85 billion,² and this trend continues today. Who uses DAFs? How can your nonprofit collaborate with DAF advisors to meet your goals? I explore these questions below.

The following article is cross-posted from Alliance magazine blog. Based out of the UK, Alliance magazine is the leading global magazine on philanthropy and social investment.

Donor advised funds (DAFs) are a growing segment of philanthropy.

On the other side of the Atlantic, DAFs have been in existence since the 1930s and have combined assets of more than $80bn in assets under management. They have attracted high profile donors including Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan who gave away $1bn worth of Facebook shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Vanguard Charitable has launched the GuideStar National Nonprofit Directory, a comprehensive and easy-to-use charitable giving research tool featuring information on more than 2.6 million nonprofit organizations. Vanguard Charitable is the first donor-advised fund to offer this service to its donors, boosting their ability to make informed and thoughtful charitable giving decisions. The in-depth information included in the Nonprofit Directory, which would typically cost $1,000 annually per user, is available to Vanguard Charitable donors free of charge.

Two questions:

1. Do you use GuideStar Premium or GuideStar Pro to verify a nonprofit's eligibility to receive grants and charitable distributions?
2. Are you acting on behalf of a private foundation, community foundation, or other sponsor of donor-advised funds?