@John Taylor I agree that we could do it the way you suggest and that it could be increasing our donor counts. My back of the envelope counting suggests that prior to this current fiscal year we had less that 6 donors give outright and through a DAF in the same year. That pattern is changing and increasing this year which means I am going to have some fun analysis when we close this year's books to try to understand the change.
Another interesting data tidbit we are seeing is donors with multiple DAFs (one at Fidelity, Schwab, or Vanguard and one at a community foundation or other NPO). [We have two donors with 3 DAFs.] I am still trying to wrap my head around this concept and all of the implications it has for the future.
@John Smilde We are setting up each DAF as a separate org in our database. We are not tying the Bill and Bertha Giving Fund @ Fidelity back to Fidelity Charitable. We are crediting the gift to the Bill and Bertha Giving Fund tying that to the Bill and Bertha household via soft credit and connect the Bill and Bertha household to the DAF as fund contacts.
It is highly possible we are not observing best practice here. However, it has made report building easier and has made it easier for our users to understand the data.
My understanding for why this works best for us is we count Fidelity Charitable as a Corporate Foundation and we count each of the DAFs associated with Fidelity as Donor Advised Funds. We want to hard credit report on them as separate columns in various reports. Thus the data aligns with our practice.
Joel
------------------------------
Joel Clasemann
Director of Advancement Services
The College of Saint Scholastica
jclasema@css.edu------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 02-10-2025 04:37 PM
From: John Smilde
Subject: Setting up accounts for Donor Advised Fund names
Thank you John. Much appreciated.
John
Original Message:
Sent: 2/10/2025 5:37:00 PM
From: John Smilde
Subject: RE: Setting up accounts for Donor Advised Fund names
Thank you Joel. Can you please clarify because it sounds like you are doing what we are doing. But do you also set up and account for the name the donor advised fund sub account name? In other words, would you have three accounts set up as follows:
1. Fidelity Charitable
2. Bill and Bertha Giving Fund (the name of their account with fidelity).
3. An account for the actual household i.e
Bertha and Bill <last name>
And then proceed to HC the DAF and SC their personalized fund name at fidelity and the also SC them as actual the actual household or individuals?
In other words. One HC and two SCs?
Thanks
John
Original Message:
Sent: 2/10/2025 5:08:00 PM
From: Joel Clasemann
Subject: RE: Setting up accounts for Donor Advised Fund names
John,
We set all DAFs up as donor records/accounts with auto soft credit to the donor recommender. We also flag all of them as DAF for the constituency so that we are easily report on the VSE and to internal persons of interest just what our DAF giving levels are. It has been extremely useful. I can't imagine how we would do that level of reporting without doing it that way. I highly recommend it.
Joel
------------------------------
Joel Clasemann
Director of Advancement Services
The College of Saint Scholastica
jclasema@css.edu
Original Message:
Sent: 02-10-2025 03:42 PM
From: John Smilde
Subject: Setting up accounts for Donor Advised Fund names
Hi all,
When we receive a gift via a Donor Advised Fund, we hard credit the fund and soft credit the recommender. I have been asked if it is appropriate to also set up an account for the fund name i.e. "Bill and Bertha <Last Name> Giving Fund."
I have read the document in the Best Practices Library that indicates it is not a best practice but provides guidance on how to do it if you choose to do it.
My question for this group is, are any of you doing it? If yes, have you found the information beneficial and how do you use it?
Many thanks,
John Smilde
Director of Gifts and Records Administration
Advancement and Alumni Relations
George Mason University
4400 University Drive, MSN 1A3
Fairfax, VA 22030
703.993.8680
jsmilde@gmu.edu
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