Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs)
Donor-Advised Funds
The Johnson Center conducts groundbreaking research as co-leaders of the Donor Advised Funds Research Collaborative (DAFRC).
Donor-advised funds (DAFs) are among the fastest-growing tools available to donors as a vehicle for managing their charitable giving. Research from state- and national-level analyses reveals more about the landscape of DAFs — including real data on contributions, payout rates, and asset sizes — to inform conversations and debates as leaders inside and outside our sector consider how philanthropic dollars are best activated when there is so much community need.
WEBINAR
A Data-Informed Dialogue on DAF Payouts
The Council of Michigan Foundations (CMF) partnered with the Johnson Center for Philanthropy to develop critical research around the account-level activity of DAFs held by Michigan-based community foundations to understand what the data tells us about DAF payout rates within our community of philanthropy. The resulting study is among the most in-depth snapshots of DAF activity available to the field to date. Explore the study's key findings with Kyle Caldwell (CMF), David Biemesderfer (United Philanthropy Forum), Joanne Florino (Philanthropy Roundtable), Jenn Holcomb (Council on Foundations), and others.
2024 National Study on Donor Advised Funds
Conducted by the Donor Advised Fund Research Collaborative (DAFRC) — a team co-led by the Johnson Center’s Jeff Williams — the 2024 National Study on Donor Advised Funds represents the most extensive independent study on donor advised funds to date. Thanks to the collective efforts of 111 DAF programs that voluntarily provided anonymized data to the research team, the dataset covers nine years of activity from more than 50,000 accounts, with over 600,000 inbound contributions to DAFS and more than 2.25 million outbound grants from DAFs. This project was generously supported by The Gates Foundation.
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