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Trish Davis, VP of Strategic Philanthropy at Susan G. Komen and Nicole Epps, Chief Operating and Financial Officer + Director of Donor Services at Brooklyn Org joined Chariot's Head of Strategy Mitch Stein in a lively discussion outlining key data, tactics and real-world examples that spark more DAF giving and deeper relationships.
In this recap:
- Importance of DAFs to philanthropy
- Understanding DAF donors
- Tactics that inspire DAF donors
- Next steps
1. Importance of DAFs to philanthropy
The DAF growth snapshot
DAF assets now stand at $326 billion, up 4.6x over the past decade. Grants out of those accounts hit $65 billion in 2024, up 5.2x in ten years. The number of DAF accounts has grown 12.6x over that same period to 3.56 million.
What it means for nonprofit fundraising
For individual nonprofits, the effect of this DAF growth, which is only expected to continue, shows up in the giving data.
Across organizations tracked in Chariot's 2026 DAF Fundraising Report, median DAF revenue grew 30% year over year, while non-DAF giving fell 1%. DAFs now account for 12% of individual nonprofit revenue on average, doubling their share over the past five years.
Additionally, DAF donors give 23x more on average than non-DAF donors, retain at rates 13 percentage points higher, and when a donor switches from a credit card to their DAF for the first time, their average gift size increases tenfold.
The “cannibalization” myth
One misconception people have is that enabling DAF giving cannibalizes existing digital revenue. However, data shows that the revenue isn't being redirected, it is being multiplied.
We've had $25,000 and $50,000 DAF gifts to participants on bib programs using donor-advised funds where we did not ever see that before without DAFs being part of that conversation.
What the data really shows is that when these donors move from giving with their debit or credit card online to using their donor-advised fund, their gifts are 5x, 10x, 20x the size that they're giving annually.
2. Understanding how DAF donors actually behave
How DAF donors think about giving
The profile of a DAF donor has some consistent markers, and understanding them shapes how nonprofits should be communicating with this segment.
Trish described DAF donors at Komen as highly intentional, often giving to multiple organizations simultaneously and actively thinking about how to optimize their giving across all of them. They ask questions that most donors don't: "Is there a time of year where my gift has more impact? Is there a match going on?"
They give throughout the year rather than clustering at year-end, which matters a great deal for organizations whose revenue skews heavily toward the fourth quarter.
For many of Komen's donors, the October–January window drives more than 70% of revenue. For DAF donors, that concentration doesn't hold.
Relationship orientation (and why first-touch follow-up matters)
DAF donors are also oriented toward long-term relationships. Nicole's view is that fund holders are increasingly focused, narrowing their giving to fewer organizations and going deeper rather than wider.
What she's observed most consistently: an initial modest gift, followed by attentive follow-up from the nonprofit, followed by a substantially larger gift by year-end or the following year. The quality of the nonprofit's response to the first gift sets the ceiling on everything that comes after.
A generational shift
Brooklyn Org has also seen a meaningful generational shift. Newer fund holders skew toward older millennials — people with families, career stability, and a growing awareness of legacy planning as a live question rather than a distant one.
Legacy planning and succession
Succession planning is also an active trend: current fund holders transferring management to their children, creating multigenerational giving relationships with the organizations they care about.
We define legacy planning not as just end of life, but how you want to give throughout your life.
Busting the “major gifts only” misconception
Trish addressed the misconception that DAFs are only a major gifts instrument for the ultra-wealthy: she holds a DAF and contributes monthly on a recurring basis. She is, by her own description, not a major donor. The donors using DAFs at Komen run from annual fund all the way through principal giving, and the way they use them is genuinely different at each level.
3. Tactics that inspire DAF donors
Brooklyn Org: build relationships (not transactions)
Nicole described Brooklyn Org's approach as fundamentally relational. Opening a fund is not the end of the relationship — it's the beginning. The organization requires grantmaking activity within the first 18 months. Beyond that, they invest heavily in ongoing touchpoints: personal calls, coffee chats, breakfast briefings, informal surveys on issue areas, and curated dinners where fund holders with aligned interests meet each other.
Annual reviews with every fund holder include a snapshot of the year's giving and specific suggestions for what to do next. Nonprofit visits sometimes evolve organically into pooled giving, a tour that starts as a site visit becomes a conversation where three fund holders decide to combine grants to a single organization.
We've actually seen with our fund holders, they're giving more because they're actually much more intentional with their giving, and they're able to track that daily, quarterly, weekly.
For nonprofits, building a relationship with community foundations in your area is also worth the investment.
Research the foundation's thematic priorities before reaching out. Send a targeted introduction that makes clear what your organization does and where you'd be a natural referral fit. When you receive a grant from one of their fund holders, acknowledge both the donor (if their information is available) and the foundation. Those touchpoints accumulate into awareness that can lead to referrals and events you wouldn't otherwise have been included in.
Nicole also advises nonprofits to send explicit communications instead of generic acknowledgment letters to inspire follow-on DAF gifts
You need to be very explicit with ‘we need to build a new farm, Our students need backpacks.’
Komen: three pillars that drive action
For Trish, the Komen strategy is built on three reinforcing pillars. The first is communications integration, not creating separate DAF campaigns that operate in isolation, but embedding DAF language into existing emails, direct mail, donation pages, and everyday donor conversations. The premise is simple: if donors don't know they can give through a DAF, they won't think to.
At the most basic level, Trish noted, a nonprofit doesn't need anything elaborate:
Just making sure that you have a place on your website that talks about... they can give through a donor-advised fund, what your EIN number is, what the address is, and a human that they can reach out to if they have any questions.
When she opened her own DAF account with Daffy, Trish discovered she had been sending gifts to organizations without toggling on her contact information. She had no idea that was happening until she experienced the donor side of the transaction firsthand.
The burden is still on us to talk to our donors... it's easy to put money into the DAF and then sort of forget it, like a gift card that's in your nightstand drawer.
The second pillar is dedicated moments: DAF Day and year-end campaigns that give donors a reason to act now without feeling pressured.
The third is technology, specifically enabling DAFpay on donation forms so that completing a DAF gift requires as few steps as possible, and ensuring that donors who give via DAF receive communications that acknowledge how they gave rather than asking them to mail a check.
Every single click that we eliminate makes generosity easier.
The role play: how to bring up DAFs in a donor conversation
One of the webinar's most practical segments was a live role play between Mitch and Trish, demonstrating how a fundraiser might naturally introduce the DAF conversation with a stock-gift donor.
Trish modeled two things very well: she described the DAF clearly and without jargon ("a charitable savings account"), and she referenced her own experience as a DAF holder, which made the recommendation feel like an honest suggestion rather than a sales pitch.
Fundraisers who use their own DAF account show up differently in these conversations — more specific, more credible, and better equipped to explain what the experience actually feels like from the donor's side.
4. Next Steps
Make the internal case
For those trying to convince a leadership team or board to take DAFs seriously, both panelists had grounded advice.
Trish recommended framing it not as a new initiative but as an integration — adding DAF language to things already in production, not spinning up an entirely new workstream. Starting small reduces resistance and generates early evidence that then makes the case for more.
Nicole reframed the ask as portfolio diversification and positioned a DAF pilot as genuinely low-lift.
This is minimal work, truly, to do donor-advised funds... if you see that people are using DAFs, I think that right there is the answer to why it's important.
The most persuasive argument, she suggested, isn't a slide deck. It's pointing to the actual gift data when donors start using the capability you've enabled.
When organizations invest in DAF strategy — tracking, stewardship, technology, communications. They're not just making it easier to receive one type of gift. They're building relationships with a donor segment that gives more, stays longer, and deepens over time.
Get ready for DAF Day: October 8, 2026
We're really always about helping our donors move from intention to impact. Our donors want to make a difference, and we think this is just a great opportunity to connect them with Brooklyn nonprofits.
Here's how to make sure your organization is set up before it arrives:
- Get on the DAF Day Giving Page — Claim your Chariot account and add your preferred DAF giving page URL in your account settings. This is how donors find you on October 8.
- Download the free marketing toolkit at dafday.com. Graphics, copy templates, and campaign guidance ready to use.
- Enable DAFpay. Chariot integrates with 70+ fundraising platforms and is available as standalone form components for paid Chariot users.
- Add DAF giving information to your website — your EIN, mailing address, and a named contact for donor questions.
- Start your outreach early. Trish's team at Komen begins one-to-one donor outreach in late August and sends print postcards in September. Marketing ramps up in late September and through DAF Day itself.
Questions? Email the DAF Day team at dafday@givechariot.com.
Invest in DAF infrastructure
DAF gift data is often messy — gifts arriving anonymously, fund names without contact information, gifts that don't get properly coded in the CRM. Trish was direct about the journey Komen has been on to clean this up.
Komen now tracks DAF gifts at the hard credit level in Salesforce, with dedicated workflows to flag and capture gifts that would previously have slipped through. A dashboard surfaces new DAF gifts in real time, and a dedicated staff person handles outreach and stewardship for that cohort. The improvement isn't just operational. It’s unlocked reporting and trend analysis that wasn't possible before.
Chariot builds the infrastructure that makes DAF giving easier — from DAFpay to Gift Processing to Disbursements. If your organization is ready to build or strengthen its DAF program, contact us at givechariot.com.
If you want to go deeper into DAF data hygiene and operations, register to join our webinar “Curing DAF Data” on August 26.
