What is a Donor Advised Fund (DAF)?

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Donor Access Funds

A donor advised fund is a centralized charitable account that helps individuals, families, and businesses to efficiently distribute their charitable contributions. 
The donor gives to a fund which is hosted by a charity (such as Fidelity Charitable) or their local community foundation. That entity will then distribute the funds to charities, as advised by the donor.
Technically, the organization hosting the fund has full discretion of the use of the funds. In practice, the donors control how the funds they contributed to the donor advised fund are distributed. There are benefits to donors who use such a fund, but we’ll leave all that to your tax advisor.
Since an individual’s donation is technically sent to the donor advised fund (not the charities such as Open Collective Foundation) it supports, Open Collective Foundation’s tax receipts will be addressed to the DAF rather than the donor who directs the contribution.
For more information on donor advised funds, we recommend the following resources:
​What's the Deal with DAFS?: A User-Friendly Guide to Donor-Advised Funds by Venable LLP
​Donor-Advised Fund FAQs by National Philanthropic Trust
​Donor Advised Funds in Historical Perspective by Lila Corwin Berman, Temple University
​Donor-Advised Funds: An Overview Using IRS Data by Paul Arnsberger, Internal Revenue Service

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Last modified 6mo ago

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