Thread by @patio11

I have been taking @DaffyGiving for the paces the last few weeks and am rather enjoying it, if anyone is looking for a low-ceremony way to make their charitable giving a bit more effective.

Got clued onto this product category when running VaccinateCA, on other side of table.

They’re called Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) and the granddaddy in the category is Fidelity Charitable, which several of our donors used. DAFs are typically used for tax planning purposes by very wealthy donors, but can be used by anyone.

Daffy is the modern fintech take on them.

The core benefit to the traditional user is that it decouples when you make tax-deductible contributions and when you figure out which charity gets them, so they can be in different years w/o hurting your tax positioning.

Most users in tech use them to donate appreciated stock they got through founding or employing a company, which is incredibly efficient from a tax perspective, particularly if you live in a high-tax state.

As a taxpayer in Japan there is no benefit to me from charitable giving to U.S. charities, but I like Daffy simply because it simplifies payment administration. Have them draw from bank periodically, approximately 3 taps and a number to have a check sent to whichever charity.

(Notably less efficient if your charity is not in the large databases, which will mostly miss churches specifically. You can still send to them; requires a presumably one time support ticket.)

A general feature of DAFs that you may find useful: you can choose to share your name with the charity or not.

I have reasons to prefer anonymous giving and was wondering if I’d have to convince a bank to do me a favor; turns out it is in fact extremely easy (via a DAF).

“What favor were you going to ask the bank for?”

I assumed that I could sweet talk a banker into issuing a bank check and mailing it for me, responding to any non-government inquiry with “It was from a client who wishes to remain anonymous.”