Advice for a GivingTuesday-Like Blitz to Boost DAF Gifts

One of the hottest buzzwords in fundraising the last few years is DAFs — donor advised funds. The accounts, which allow people to set aside money for charity while getting a tax break upfront, have more than $250 billion in them. In an effort to get donors to award more money from these accounts to charities, a new giving day was born last year: DAF Day.

Now in its second year, DAF Day will take place on October 9. The idea is for charities to remind DAF owners that now is a great time to give. The Chronicle spoke with fundraisers and consultants who took part last year to find out what they hoped to gain from participating, how they fared last year, what they’re doing this year, and what advice they have for newbies.

What Drew Them In

Having seen an uptick in DAF revenue in recent years, Planned Parenthood joined DAF Day last year hoping to boost their year-end giving results, says Danielle Felico, production manager for the Presidents Circle, a midlevel-giving group.

The organization geared its campaign “specifically to our DAF donors to kick off our year-end fundraising campaigns,” Felico says.

The American Civil Liberties Union had also received more DAF gifts and hoped to grow that funding stream. The group added DAFpay, a tool that allows DAF holders to pay online, to their website and also began “highlighting DAF giving on all of our direct-mail reply forms and including QR codes on those reply forms as well,” says Meghan Lee, associate director of impact giving at the ACLU.

The group promoted DAF Day to all its supporters — including major donors. ACLU fundraisers went into the day enthusiastic, but they were a little apprehensive about the decision to include the group’s biggest donors.

“They’re used to seeing really specific appeals from us,” Lee says. “We weren’t sure how the messaging of DAF Day would land with them.”

The World Wildlife Fund will be participating in its first DAF Day this year. Development staff believe it will help raise both awareness and gifts from donors.

“It’s like the GivingTuesday of DAFs,” says Jessica Sotelo, senior director of membership. “It creates this moment of excitement and gives them an excuse to make a donation to us through their DAFs.”

The Results They Got Last Year

There were a lot of unknowns going into the first DAF Day, which was the brainchild of Chariot, a company that makes an online DAF payment tool. Chariot says that during last year’s inaugural event, DAF providers like the Donor’s Fund and Daffy saw four times the number of gifts from DAFs compared to typical daily gifts, and that many participating charities experienced big boosts in DAF giving.

For Planned Parenthood, DAF Day kicked off year-end giving in a big way. DAF revenue increased 63 percent in the first two weeks of October compared to the previous year, and then kept growing.

“DAF Day really helped boost our year-end fundraising campaigns, bringing in some additional DAF revenue in October and November,” Felico says. “Most of our DAF revenues have come in December. It really started earlier last year, and the growth continued through December.”

The ACLU also saw a strong bump in DAF giving — success that Lee attributes to its decision to market to the full file and share information online.

“We promoted on our Instagram and social media feeds, which is unusual for us,” she says. “We usually reserve those spots for more mission-explicit content instead of fundraising. Because DAF Day was so new, this was really helpful to get out there and legitimize the day and help just raise awareness around the day.”

Another tactic the ACLU employed: a $1 million match. “And matches never hurt,” Lee says.

Like Planned Parenthood, the ACLU saw a steady influx of DAF donations in the weeks after DAF Day. Part of this was because some donors didn’t use online DAF payments and instead called their financial institution, which then mailed a check that arrived weeks later.

To help tie DAF checks to marketing pushes, Lee said the ACLU did “matchbacks” to pair gifts it received with supporters who received DAF Day marketing.

One advantage of sending to the entire file was that it expanded the group’s knowledge of who on the donor rolls had DAFs. “I was really surprised by the amount of donors we had that have DAFs and simply weren’t giving to us from their DAFs,” Lee says. “Either because we hadn’t made it easy or we just hadn’t reminded them that they could.”

What They’re Doing This Year

During its first year, DAF Day had more than 1,250 participating nonprofits. By mid-September, more than 3,000 nonprofits had signed on for its sophomore outing, according to Chariot’s head of strategy Mitch Stein. He added that last year, most signups happened in the two weeks before DAF Day, so he expects the 2025 participant number will increase as well.

Organizations taking a second swing at DAF Day are changing things up a bit. This year, Planned Parenthood plans to expand who receives appeals to include some non-DAF donors and possibly all of the organization’s midlevel donors, Felico says.

The World Wildlife Fund will target appeals to donors it has identified as likely to have a DAF, Sotelo says. The group will also launch an online campaign.

“We really want to make sure that we are providing them with all these ways to give and meeting them where they are, and that is online,” Sotelo says. “Our strategy is really about making it easy for donors to give where they are.”

What groups are doing depends on their bandwidth and their goals, says Barb Perell, vice president of marketing for Avalon Consulting Group, which is helping several nonprofit clients with DAF Day promotion.

“Some organizations are putting a light box on their website to draw attention to DAF Day,” Perell says. “At some point, people might involve SMS texting or digital ads, but it’s still pretty new and people are in different stages of testing it out.”

One tactic that is working well for the ACLU: When the group appeals to donors who have previously given via DAF, it asks specifically for a gift from that fund.

“We say, ‘Would you be interested in making a gift from your Fidelity DAF?’” Lee says. “That lets donors know that we’re really paying attention to the types of gifts that they’re giving us, and we’re making those solicitations as personal as possible.”

To keep DAFs front of mind, the ACLU spotlighted a DAF donor in its annual report. Lee says organizations could do something similar in a newsletter prior to DAF Day.

The highlighted donor could explain why they give from a DAF. “Something like, ‘I set aside this money because I wanted to be able to very quickly direct funds,’” Lee says. “At the end of that article, you could include how to give from a DAF to your organization. That doesn’t require extra resources.”

One thing the ACLU did that required some extra labor was a mailing that inquired about donors’ future giving plans.

“We sent a larger cultivation package that asked folks about their giving intent for the rest of the year,” Lee says. “It said, ‘we’re going to be facing all of these challenges in the coming year,’ then talked about DAFs a bit, and then said, ‘could you let us know if you may be giving via your DAFs later in the year?’”

Lee was profoundly happy with the number of positive responses from donors who said they planned to give, but it created “a lot of work on the back end” to enter responses into the system. The answers, however, help ensure donors will get the appropriate appeals moving forward.

“If someone was taking the time to indicate that they’d be giving us a gift, we could reach out to them maybe with extra solicitation points,” she says. “Maybe later with a phone call or an email on top of the letter they might already be receiving because we know that the intent is there. We want to meet them where they’re at.”

Advice for Newbies

Like other giving holidays, DAF Day can be an extra reason for nonprofits to reach out to supporters, Lee says.

“GivingTuesday is so saturated, so flooded, and it’s still impactful, which is wild to me,” she says. “This is so new that it’s a great opportunity to participate. It’s not oversaturated. It’s great to get out there and talk to your donors about it, and be on their minds on this day.”

For nonprofits that are new to DAF Day, last year’s veterans have offered a few tips to make it work well.

Realize you likely have donors with DAFs. Some nonprofits think DAF donors are just very wealthy people who aren’t giving to their organizations, but that’s not the case, Lee says.
“I wouldn’t think of these as someone else’s donors,” she says. “These are your donors. I guarantee, no matter how small you are, you have donors who have DAFs. These are donors who are going to give more, they’re going to upgrade year over year, they’re going to retain better year over year. It’s worth talking to them.”

Educate donors about donor-advised funds. “Have a short and sweet section on your website that helps with that education piece,” says Jackie Biancolli Libby, senior vice president at Avalon Consulting Group. “This is something you should do now, so that when DAF Day comes and people are going to the website, the information’s already there.”

Lee, with the ACLU, adds that it’s crucial to have your organization’s tax ID number and the steps donors need to take to make a DAF gift available online and in any mailed appeals.

Find a match. Matching funds can be motivating for donors. “Even if you can just do a low-dollar match, the match is still really impactful, and it just gets people’s attention,” Lee says. The ACLU had a $1 million match in 2024.

Pay attention to your donors. If a nonprofit ignores its donors on DAF Day, it’s unlikely other organizations will do the same, Libby says.

“If they’re not out there telling their donors to give to them via donor advised fund, somebody else is,” she says. “It doesn’t take long to put together an email or text message to send out to their fundraising file or even a warm prospect list.”

Join forces across the development office. If your organization has different departments within fundraising, it’s a good idea to come together to talk about your approach for DAF Day.

“It’s not just something to talk to major donors about or mid-level donors about,” Lee says. “If your organization is segmented in development by those audiences, it’s a great time to bring all those colleagues together so you can be on the same page with your DAF strategy.”

Lean into the moment. It’s been a turbulent year for a lot of nonprofits. If your group has experienced challenges, DAF Day is a fine time to remind donors.

“I don’t think we need to be shy or sheepish about approaching donors in this moment,” Lee says. “They want to be approached. They’ve created these DAF funds for a reason, and they want to participate in our mission. A lot of donors consider their donations to be activism, especially for older donors who perhaps can’t get out on the streets or participate in other ways they might want to.”