Jennifer Risher on the growing power — and still untapped potential — of Donor Advised Funds

5 min read. In the interests of informing our supporters about their philanthropic options, we interviewed Jennifer Risher about the benefits of Donor Advised Funds (DAFs).

These days there are many ways to give to your favorite causes and organizations. One way that is becoming an increasingly popular option among philanthropic households is the Donor Advised Fund, or DAF. At the same time, many donors are still unsure what a DAF is or why it might be a reasonable option for them. In the interests of informing our community of supporters about philanthropic options available to them, we spoke with Jennifer Risher about the benefits and trending appeal of DAFs.

Jennifer Risher is a public speaker, philanthropist, investor, and author of We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth (2020), which explores the impact of wealth on identity and relationships with the aim of helping those with wealth move out of guilt, shame, or a desire to keep money hidden and into meaning, joy, and purpose. As a beneficiary of the dot-com boom, Jennifer believes abundance can fuel action and drive change — and has been using her voice and resources to create more economic, gender, and racial equity. Jennifer has also been investing with women-of-color fund managers with the goal of achieving financial and social returns. She is on the board of Women Moving Millions and is a member of Women Donors Network and Solidaire.

In 2020, Jennifer and her husband, David, launched #HalfMyDAF to inspire more charitable giving. Indeed, specifically timed to drive charitable giving during the off-season, the #HalfMyDAF match campaign runs from March through September. Over the last five years, the couple has contributed millions in matching funds, rallied donors and nonprofits, and created a community that has moved over $70 million to nonprofits. Beyond direct funding, #HalfMyDAF has created a sense of urgency and excitement around giving and provided a spark of innovation within the philanthropic sector. 

We are grateful for Jennifer’s generosity in sharing her time and her expert’s eye on the subject of DAFs with our community of supporters.

What is a “DAF” and what are the reasons to start one?

A Donor Advised Fund, or DAF, is a charitable vehicle meant to facilitate charitable giving. It’s a little like opening a charitable checking account. For a small fee, DAFs simplify grant-making and record-keeping. By opening a DAF, it’s easy to organize and keep track of your giving, and you can give over time. This ease and flexibility is part of its appeal. DAFs also provide a financial incentive, because you get a tax break up front on the money that you put into it. (My financial advisor introduced DAFs to me over 20 years ago as a sound way to help off-set a liquidity event, for instance.) 

Who operates the DAF?

There are three types of DAF sponsors: Large national sponsors like Fidelity, Vanguard and Schwab hold the majority of DAF funds, about 70 percent; then there are community foundations, which hold another 20 percent; and finally single-purpose DAFs, which are often religious or educational organizations, and which hold the remaining 10 percent.

What do you see as the untapped potential in DAFs?

Well, you’d think that because DAFs make it easy for donors to organize and track their giving, there would be a lot more charitable dollars flowing from DAFs than there actually are. In fact, the money too often remains in the DAF and is not deployed. Today there is some $229 billion sitting in the over one million DAF accounts nationwide. 

Why is that?

Part of the reason for this is the lack of a payout requirement. Donors can keep their money in their DAF for a year, for five years, or for a lifetime. And they can pass that money down to their children. There is nothing to incentivize or inspire the distribution of funds. Another reason for the status quo is that DAF sponsors make money on the funds sitting in DAFs by charging a small, often largely invisible fee. In this way, national DAF sponsors make hundreds-of-millions of dollars on the money sitting in their DAFs. At the same time, community foundations, which also house DAFs, regularly define themselves in terms of assets under management. This is another problem: That status should come from assets deployed, not sitting. We need to be talking not about “assets under management” but about assets under movement.

“We are injecting the system with an incentive, in the form of matching funds, and also a sense of urgency with specific deadlines. Both are working to inspire more giving and move more money from DAFs to nonprofits.”

Jennifer Risher

Is anything being done to address these problems?

There have been top-down efforts to change DAF policy. The Accelerate Charitable Efforts Act, or ACE, suggested a 10-year payout. I was a signatory on that bill. But it didn’t get far. In fact, large DAF sponsors and community foundations spent $11 million lobbying to kill the bill — because the money sitting in DAFs is part of their revenue model. Systems change and policy change is needed. 

At the same time, I don’t blame individual DAF holders. Donors often aren’t deploying the funds for very human reasons. For example, donors can forget about their DAFs because no one is reminding them. When it comes to DAFs, there is nothing built into the system to encourage donors to get that money moving—to put it to work in community and with nonprofits.

Many people also understandably feel overwhelmed by work, family, and life in general and are putting off giving “until later.” Or they want to give but are overwhelmed by the choices before them and are “scared of getting it wrong.” 

Some, meanwhile, are looking at their DAF as what they will give over a lifetime—despite what I would argue is the urgency to give now. But this is where #HalfMyDAF comes in. It’s about how individuals and grassroots movements have the power to drive much-needed systems change. It’s about showing that individual donors and families can be part of solving big problems and offering solutions now, today.

What is the story of #HalfMyDAF?

It started as an emotional response to the need and uncertainty of COVID. In March of 2020, my husband and I were sheltering in place. My husband was running a global nonprofit called Worldreader, getting books into the hands of kids throughout the Global South. He felt funding pulling back. I felt the need from organizations I supported and was doubling down and accelerating three-year gifts. But we each wanted to do more. As we talked about how best to do this, we came up with a way for our giving to inspire others to give as well.

We settled on the simple idea of using matching grants as an incentive to get people to move money out of their Donor Advised Funds. We put up $1 million of our own money in the form of matching grants. We created a website, talked with the press, held a webinar for nonprofits to talk about DAFs, and launched our effort in May. Five months later, at the end of September, we had moved $8.6 million from DAFs to nonprofits across the country.

That success must have been inspiring.

Oh, yes. In fact, we hadn’t planned to continue past that year, but we felt the need. And that year, #HalfMyDAF created a lot of buzz. We were in the Washington Post, in Bloomberg, in the Chronicle of Philanthropy and Giving Compass. Also, our daughters got involved, which really propelled us. They came to us during the holidays and said they wanted to put money toward #HalfMyDAF — our oldest wanted to direct funds toward racial justice, our youngest toward climate and the environment.

So the momentum has kept building. Over the last five years, David and I have given millions in matching funds, rallied donors and nonprofits, and moved more than $70 million from DAFs to nonprofits. We also have an amazing partner in Amalgamated Foundation, an ally in moving money. This year, in 2024, we also partnered with Democracy Fund and helped move more money to ensure free and fair elections.

What’s ahead for the #HalfMyDAF movement?

I still believe policy change is needed. But I also believe in the power of grassroots movements to raise awareness. We are injecting the system with an incentive, in the form of matching funds, and also a sense of urgency with specific deadlines. Both are working to inspire more giving and move more money from DAFs to nonprofits. Our goal in the next few years is to unlock $100 million in charitable giving. However, we need to secure additional partnerships and funding to ensure #HalfMyDAF can drive impact longer term.

To learn more about the #HalfMyDAF movement, visit www.halfmydaf.com.


To make a Donor Advised Fund (DAF) gift supporting local community health or to learn more about DAF’s, please click here
or reach out to Mary Ott, Development Director at 707-395-4928 or mott@healthcarefoundation.net


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