DAFinitive

What are Donor Advised Funds?

Donor advised funds (DAFs) are charitable giving vehicles that allow a donor to set aside assets for future philanthropy. DAFs are held at sponsoring organizations, which are typically community foundations (ex: The Boston Foundation), the charitable arm of financial institutions (ex: Fidelity Charitable) or single-issue nonprofits (like a university or religious-based community organization).

Why did you create DAFinitive®?

Back in 2020 The Helen Brown Group started collected publicly available information on DAFs in a spreadsheet for the HBG team to utilize when we conducted prospect research for clients.As the spreadsheet continued to grow, it became apparent that the wider prospect research community would find this information useful as well, and DAFinitive® was born a couple of years later!

Is every donor advised fund in the US in DAFinitive®?

Unfortunately, no. DAF sponsors don't typically publish their fund lists (although some do!). The good news is that DAFinitive® is consistently growing!Our team of prospect researchers is using traditional prospect research techniques to continual source data from publicly-available websites and related material.

Can I upload a list for screening?

Yes! With our optional batch screening service, you can upload a list of constituents for batch screening against the DAFinitive® database.Please note that since DAFinitive® does not include contact information for donors or advisors, the batch screening process identifies potential matches based on names alone.

Does DAFinitive® include the donor(s) for every fund?

No, but we’ve added the donor’s name(s) when the sponsoring organization specifically lists them (e.g. in a note or description).