The Nonprofit Science Podcast · Sheela N. Mahajan

Demystifying DAFs- Research into Modern Giving

October 29, 2025·44 min·4 clips

Donor-advised funds now hold over $234 billion, a 643% increase in just 10 years.

The episode opens with a fundraiser hearing that a major donor has moved giving through a donor-advised fund. Sheila uses that scene to get past the acronym and into the messy parts: whether support will continue, how gifts should be handled, and what the new setup means for the relationship. The size of the field changes the mood. Donor-advised funds are described as holding over $234 billion in assets, so this is not some odd back-office exception. The bigger shift is psychological. Once money sits in a DAF, the donor has already set it aside for charity, even if no nonprofit has received it yet. That can make giving feel easier during a crisis, and sometimes more expected. For fundraisers, the episode keeps coming back to the ask. Tax-deadline urgency has less bite after the donor has already taken the benefit. Public recognition may matter less too, since Sheila points to research suggesting DAF donors are less driven by acknowledgment than traditional major donors. The better move is to read the DAF as a sign of serious philanthropic intent, then talk to the donor in those terms. Less tax mystique, more relationship work.

As heard by us

A grounded look at why DAFs change fundraising.

Donor-advised funds come through here as a real fundraising problem, not a side issue. The episode starts with a donor moving a familiar annual gift into a DAF, then uses the sector's numbers to show why nonprofits cannot shrug this off when they plan for revenue.

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Why you'd press play

Understand why donor-advised funds change the ask, the timing, and the relationship.

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