Do national DAF sponsors give differently than foundations?

According to the DAF Research Collaborative, giving from donor-advised funds (DAF)s grew from 10.3% of all U.S. charitable giving in 2020 to 15.3% by 2024. The rapid growth of DAFs—which let donors contribute to a fund, take an immediate tax deduction, and recommend grants over time— has the potential to change which causes and nonprofits receive support.

DAFs and private foundations are often treated as similar tools for the same job: moving charitable dollars from donors to nonprofits through an intermediary that holds and invests the funds before granting them out. So, where are DAF dollars flowing, compared with where traditional foundation grants are going?

To find out, we built an interactive dashboard comparing giving from national DAF sponsors and grantmaking by private foundation by issue area and recipient size. DAF sponsors included in this analysis are limited to U.S. sponsors designated as “national” by the DAF Research Collaborative (excluding donation processors) where DAF giving is at least 90% of total giving.

What does the new dashboard comparing giving from national DAF sponsors and foundations show?

Our Tableau Public dashboard compares data on DAF donations from 57 national DAF sponsors hosting 492,257 DAF accounts and grantmaking by 100,499 private foundations on two tabs: “Funding by subject” and “Funding by recipient size.” You can toggle between “Share of grant dollars” and “Share of grants” and filter by year (2020–2024 by default or for each year) to see how the patterns shift.

This analysis draws on Candid’s grants database, which codes each grant using the Philanthropy Classification System and matches recipients across records. See the dashboard’s Methodology tab for more on scope and how to read the results.

Here are some of patterns we can see.

Do national DAF sponsors and foundations support similar or different causes?

These DAF sponsors and foundations overlap on some top causes but differ more significantly on others. Education draws the largest share of dollars from both (25% for DAFs vs. 23% for foundations). Human services ranks high for both as well, second for DAFs and third for foundations (14% vs. 13%). Beyond that, the two part ways.

For national DAF sponsors, religion is the third highest-ranking cause, drawing more than twice the share of dollars foundations allocate (11% vs. 4%). It’s a gap that may reflect the fact that most DAF accounts are set up by individual donors, who have traditionally prioritized religious giving more than institutional funders. For foundation grantmaking, health is the second highest-ranking cause, drawing nearly a fifth of their dollars (19.9%), but a lower priority for donations from national DAF sponsors (9.8%).

Do national DAF sponsors and foundations support nonprofits of different sizes?

This view shows the share of grant dollars going to nonprofits of different sizes, based on organizational expenses. Explore the full dashboard on Tableau Public. 

Smaller and midsize nonprofits, meanwhile, receive a comparatively modest share of dollars from either source, and national DAF sponsors and foundations track fairly closely across most of these brackets. There’s one modest exception: midsize organizations in the $1-10 million range capture a larger slice of foundation giving (26%) than DAF giving (19%). Otherwise, the shares of DAF dollars by recipient-size are broadly similar to that of foundation grant dollars.

Fast growth, familiar patterns

As DAF giving has outpaced the broader growth in charitable giving over the past several years, it’s tempting to assume that means new recipients, new causes, or a genuinely different way of funding nonprofit work. Our data suggests something more modest: DAFs are directing their dollars to largely the same kinds of organizations that private foundations fund, and while there’s a real divergence over a few causes like health and religion, the overall pattern of what gets funded looks familiar.

We invite you to explore the dashboard, filter by year, and see what the patterns look like for the causes and organizations you care about most.