Data shows 2018 DAF donations top $20 billion

• Date: 01 January 2020
• Published date: 01 January 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30703

NONPROFIT BUSINESS ADVISOR JANUARY 2020

6© 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company • All rights reserved

DOI: 10.1002/nba

Nonprot Research

Data shows 2018 DAF donations top $20 billion

The nal tabulations of data from 2018 show that

grants made through donor-advised funds hit a major

milestone, topping $20 billion for the rst time.

According to the 13th annual Donor-Advised Fund

Report, recently released by the National Philan-

thropic Trust, grants from DAFs to qualied charities

totaled $23.42 billion in 2018, an 18.9% increase over

the prior year. And that’s just one of several metrics

that show impressive growth for DAFs, continuing

a trend nearly a decade running. For example, total

DAF assets available for grantmaking increased to

$121.42 billion, an 8.3% year-over-year increase.

Contributions to DAF accounts, which will be used

for charitable purposes, grew 20.1%, to $37.12 billion.

The popularity of DAFs has been on the upswing.

During the past ve years, the number of DAFs in the

United States has tripled and grant dollars from DAFs

to charities have nearly doubled, the research showed.

Overall, the report showed, contributions to do-

nor-advised funds represent 12.7% of all individual

giving in the United States.

According to Eileen Heisman, president and CEO

of National Philanthropic Trust, donors are turning

to DAFs for a variety of reasons.

“DAFs are evolving into the next generation giving

vehicle-of-choice because they are exible, easy to man-

age, convenient and responsive. They are adaptable

for both new and seasoned donors’ goals, blending

traditional and emerging models of philanthropy,”

Heisman said in a statement announcing the report.

She also noted that donors might be shifting their

giving strategies in light of the tax-law changes passed

in December 2017.

“Contributions to donor-advised funds outpaced

grants for the rst time in four years, which may indi-

cate donors choosing to ‘bunch’ their giving—essen-

tially pre-funding several years of charitable giving to

make their philanthropy more tax effective,” she said.

To read the report in full, visit https://www.nptrust.

org/reports/daf-report. ■

Facebook rolls out new fundraising tools

Facebook has rolled out several new features

that aim to help charities raise funds through the

company’s social media platforms.

Launched just prior to #GivingTuesday, the new

features—available on Facebook and Instagram—

will make it easier for people to donate money to

causes they care about, as well as commit to vol-

unteer with groups they support under an added

component that will go live in early 2020.

The new fundraising tools are as follows:

• Fundraiser “stickers” in the Facebook Stories

app. This will enable users to afx a digital fund-

raising sticker to their Facebook Story so they can

more easily notify their friends and raise awareness

of fundraisers for groups they are interested in

supporting.

• Charity livestreaming on the Facebook Gaming

app. According to the company, the new charity

livestreaming tools will be available to all Facebook

Gaming Level Up creators and certain other cre-

ators in regions where fundraising tools are available

on Facebook. During a livestream event, gaming

creators can now select charitable groups and causes

for their viewers to support, chosen from a compre-

hensive list of charities available for fundraisers in

their given region. Using this interface, people can

donate while watching a livestream, and see in real

time how the group or project is progressing toward

the donation goals set by the creator.

• An Instagram “Donate” button on business ac-

count proles. Nonprots with business accounts

on Instagram can place a Donate button on their

prole pages, which allows them to raise money

directly via their proles, where interested Instagram

users go to for more information about the charity.

On both Facebook and Instagram, 100% of the

proceeds from Donate buttons and fundraisers goes

to the charity—no transaction fees are charged, the

company said.

Facebook’s fundraising tools are already a hit

with charities, and Facebook and Instagram ac-

count holders—its users have raised over $2 billion

for causes they care about, according to the com-

pany’s latest gures.

For more information, visit https://socialgood.

fb.com. ■