We’re digging deeper into the roles of DAFs at community foundations, sharing examples of DAFs in action around the state to learn more about their role in communities. 

We recently spoke to Berrien Community Foundation who shared that DAF fund holders are an integral part of the community and are very engaged.

“They’re going out into the community and responding to community needs. There’s constant motion and constant giving through them,” Lisa Cripps-Downey, president of Berrien Community Foundation, said. 

The community foundation has reached out to DAF fundholders for support on a variety of projects.

“We do senior care kits for stay-at-home seniors every year. We’ve called our DAF fundholders and told them we need help to make this happen and our DAF holders do help. They’re looking at grants that the community foundation doesn’t have funds to support and offering their support,” Cripps-Downey said. 

According to Cripps-Downey, DAFs are a way to connect the donor to the community in ways that they might not have been before.

DAF holders also keep the community foundation connected to otherwise unknown needs. 

“Sometimes a DAF holder will connect with us, and they will open our eyes to things that they’ve seen, issues that they feel are important and that we should know about in our community,” Cripps-Downey said. 

Cripps-Downey explained that there is no single profile for DAF contributors within the community. 

“We don’t have an average donor; everyone seems to be so different. Sometimes people think that a DAF donor is someone who is extremely wealthy and looking to park money for a tax advantage but that’s not the case,” Cripps-Downey said. “Our DAF holders are folks who are trying to support their community and support the charities and things that they love.”

One of the most important parts of DAFs at the community foundation, Cripps-Downey shared, is their two-way partnership. 

“I can call one of my DAF fund holders and say I know you have interest in, for example, the needs of children and I wanted you to know that this need is out there, and quite often they respond to those needs,” Cripps-Downey said. 

The community foundation has seen DAFs as not only an effective entry point into philanthropy, but also serve as an avenue to other forms of giving. 

“They might see that we’re doing a scholarship program and through that knowledge they will endow a scholarship that is forever going to help students attain their educational goals and from there they can look at life end giving. They work their way through creating that relationship, learning more about philanthropy and learning what they can do within the community to continue their giving,” Cripps-Downey shared. 

Much of the community foundation’s legacy giving comes from a donor who started with a DAF.

“The amount of work that we do, the impact that we’re able to make is so influenced by and supported by DAFs that I really think that without them and without their support we would curtail the amount of impact that we’re able to have on our community,” Cripps-Downey said.  
 

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CMF released phase 3 of our payout rate research series, Analysis of Donor Advised Funds from a Community Foundation Perspective, focusing on the payout rates of donor advised funds (DAFs) within the context of the philanthropic sector, specifically the payout rates of DAFs administered by Michigan community foundations. We invite you to read the full payout rate research series.