FAQ

We issue quarterly statements for your fund. The statement (sample link) will show your fund’s activity for each quarter, including contributions and grants. You will receive an email notification once the statements are available in the DonorView portal.

We accept a wide range of assets, these include:

• Cash
• Publicly traded securities including stocks, bonds, mutual fund shares
• Restricted and controlled stock
• Privately-held securities (C-corp or S-corp shares, LLCs, LPs)
• Real estate
• Life insurance policies
• Private foundation grants or terminations
• Bequests
• The named beneficiary of a charitable remainder trust or a charitable lead trust
• The named beneficiary of an IRA, 401(k), or other retirement account
• Tangible and intangible personal property

Tax regulations vary by the type of asset, and are subject to change. Call us if we can help in the initial planning of your contribution. We will work with you and your trusted advisors. Our experience (particularly with accepting and holding complex and hard-to-value assets) is among the longest in the industry.

All of our DAFs have 2 components.  A liquidity account containing approximately 2% of the fund balance (held here and kept in a competitive money market) and an investment account holding 98% of the funds, held at your preferred custodian.  You, along with our trusted financial advisor (RIA or broker) will create an investment program that’s tailored to your individual goals and objectives.  This investment program is subject to our flexible Investment Guidelines.

Yes. When you complete the DAF application, you will select a Succession Plan for your fund.  Some of the options available allow you to either create new accounts for all your successors (min $25K each) or pass your current account privileges to your successors.  Keep in mind that with the latter option, if you have more than 2 successors, the first 2 will become the Primary and Joint Advisors once the Succession Plan goes into effect.  We offer several creative ways in which your donor advised fund can continue in perpetuity, please give us a call if we can assist you.

Some parents enjoy involving their children in the grant recommendation process.  This is an excellent way to teach children family values and prepare them to become successful, responsible and caring adults.

You can name them successors to your fund as part of your Succession Plan.  You have the option of setting up new funds for each of your successors (min $25K) or you can pass account privileges to your successors.  Keep in mind that with the latter option, if you have more than 2 successors, the first 2 will become the Primary and Joint Advisors once the Succession Plan goes into effect.

Once we receive a completed DAF application, a fund can be established within a few days. At this point, please have your financial advisor contact us so that we can establish the investment account for your fund and coordinate the transfer of assets.

Yes. You have maximum flexibility in naming your fund. Most donors choose a name that reflects the family name, such as “The Jones Family Charitable Fund” or “The Jones Family Foundation.” You may also select a name that enables you and your family to remain anonymous.  The name of the fund cannot exceed 50 characters.

Currently, you don’t have to keep a minimum balance.  Keep in mind that if your fund’s balance cannot support the fund’s $150 minumum quarterly fee, we will contact you to discuss your fund’s status and charitable plans.

A minimum initial contribution of $25,000 or more is needed establish your fund.  Minimum subsequent contributions are $1,000 or more.  Please note that you may also set up your DAF now and fund it later, for example, as part of your overall estate plan.

Individuals, families, companies, foundations, trusts, and other entities can establish a donor advised fund by completing a simple application and contributing assets. Many people open charitable gift funds for their year-end tax planning and charitable gift-giving.

A Donor Advised Fund can be a solution for anyone who:

• Is experiencing an extraordinarily high-income year.
• Will be selling a highly appreciated asset in the near future (publicly traded securities, complex assets like C-corp and S-corp shares, real estate, etc.).
• Wants to support several charities through one substantial gift.
• Wants maximum flexibility to change the charitable beneficiaries over time.
• Wants to involve a spouse and/or leave a legacy to their children and grandchildren in charitable giving.
• Makes cash gifts to numerous charities but would benefit by giving appreciated assets.
• Experiences fluctuating income but wants to maintain a steady level of giving.
• Is concerned about the complexity of a private foundation and lack of privacy.
• Wants to support a charity but is not confident with the organization’s investment management capability.
• Wants to keep his or her charitable giving confidential.
• Wishes to support a particular charity but wants to ensure that the gift is used as he or she intended.
• Wants to make year-end tax planning and charitable giving easy.

Donor advised funds, or charitable gift funds, provide numerous benefits to the donor:

• Donors enjoy the maximum income tax deduction.
• Donors avoid capital gains and estate taxes and, assets grow tax-free.
• Donors can manage their charitable giving similar to a private foundation but without all the cost, regulatory headaches and paperwork.
• The fund handles oversight and administration including gift acceptance, grant processing, recordkeeping, compliance and tax reporting.
• The donor decides whether to keep their charitable giving private or allow it to be acknowledged.

Donor advised funds are charitable-giving vehicles that provide simple, tax-smart and meaningful ways to make charitable giving easier. The donor enjoys immediate and maximum tax advantages but can make grants on a flexible timetable.  Similar to a charitable investment account, donor advised funds are sometimes called charitable gift funds.

Donor advised funds are much easier to establish than other planned giving vehicles such as private foundations, charitable trusts and supporting organizations. The process for establishing a donor advised fund is outlined below:

• Contact a donor advised fund sponsor such as iGiftFund to set up a fund.
• Contribute to the fund using a wide range of assets including cash, stock or real estate.  In return for your contribution, you will receive immediate and maximum tax benefits.
• Donors will designate their financial trusted advisor to manage investments in the fund.
• Donors can recommend grants on a flexible timetable.
• Donors can pass along their family values to future generations

Yes, we are recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt public charity under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3).  You can deduct contributions made to your fund under Section 170 of the Code. Our IRS tax identification number is: 81-2576201.

As pioneers of the independent donor advised fund experience, we offer a donor experience not typically found in today’s marketplace for donor advised funds including:

1. Sponsor Focus – different from Community Foundations, whose main focus is on the needs of the local community or National Commercial Sponsors, who focus on financial products and services for-profit motive, we focus on the donor’s philanthropic interests.
2. Independence – with no pools, no products or services to sell and no philanthropic agenda, our focus is entirely on the philanthropic interests of the donor.
3. The Donor Experience – we do not operate a call center.  You have ready access to our principals and staff with some of the longest experience in the donor advised fund industry.
4. Affordability – we have some of the lowest administrative fees in the industry with savings of 25% to 50% or more compared to other national sponsors. For example, our administrative fee schedule starts at just 0.45% (45 bps) on the first $500,000 of the fund balance.  Other sponsors start at 0.60% (60 bps), or more.
5. Investment choice – we do not manage the investment.  Donors recommend their financial advisor, as broker or in a managed account relationship, to manage their fund’s investments in open architecture, at all fund size levels, on your familiar platform. Assets types can be held in kind.  This allows the donor to keep their relationship with their trusted advisor.
6. Fund options – unlike commercial sponsors, we are organized as a national community foundation.  In addition to DAFs, we offer other donor fund options which can be tailored to the donor’s unique needs including: designated funds, field-of-interest funds, scholarship funds, charity endowment funds, etc.  Note:  These latter funds are not considered donor advised funds, and as such are eligible to receive Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCD) at age 70½ and count toward the donor’s RMDs at age 72.
7. Systems – we have a great back office system and donor portal which allows us to provide a level of systems support equal to or better than some of the national commercial sponsors.

Though anyone can make tax-deductible charitable contributions to your fund, it’s usually the donor (primary or joint advisors) who are the primary contributors.  Remember that subsequent contributions are $1,000 or more.  Contributions are tax-deductible and must meet the criteria outlined in the Program Description and Guidelines.

If you have no successors, you have a couple of other options as part of your Succession Plan.  You can designate one or more charitable organizations (max 6) as charitable beneficiaries.  Depending on the size of the fund, you can also choose to distribute the account’s assets in perpetuity in your name.

If you don’t designate a Succession Plan, we will annually distribute 5% of your account’s balance to the charitable organizations that reasonably best match your grant history and intent.

No.

Yes. We will issue a gift acceptance letter whenever we receive a contribution to your fund.  This letter, which serves as your receipt for tax purposes, is available in DonorView (portal) as soon as the contribution is posted.

You must file Form 8283, with our signed acknowledgement, if the amount of your deduction for all noncash gifts is more than $5,000 (except certain publicly traded securities). Blank forms and instructions can be obtained from the IRS website through this link.  If we dispose of those assets within three years of the date of your contribution, we will prepare Form 8282 and submit it to the IRS.

Yes. Typically the transfer will trigger a taxable event.  Consult your tax advisor first.

Yes, you can donate your traditional IRA, 401(k), and some other tax-deferred assets to a donor advised fund account upon death by way of a beneficiary designation.  Make sure to complete a DAF application to establish your donor advised fund first.  The beneficiary of your estate would be iGiftFund FBO your donor advised fund.

No.  You can keep track of your grant recommendations in DonorView, where you can see the status of your grant recommendation.  When the grant status changes from ENTERED to POSTED your grant has been processed.

Grant distributions are processed in the form of a check.  The check, which is sent directly to the charity, is accompanied by a grant letter, which will contain the grant purpose as well as your fund name, primary and joint advisor name and address when full recognition is selected.

Many do, please consult with your employer.

No.  Grant checks can only be mailed directly to the grantee organization. If you have a special event for which you would like to present your gift to the grantee charity, make sure to add a note to the Grants Team when you recommend the grant, and they will send you a copy of the grant letter for this purpose.

A grant is typically processed in 5 to 7 business days or less.

The minimum grant amount is $100.

You can make an unlimited number of grants from your fund, provided that there are sufficient funds. Additional fees may apply to high-volume grant-making.

If you have not made grant recommendations for three years, iGiftFund will make every effort to contact you or your advisor(s) to request that a recommendation be made.

Yes.  You can recommend a grant to be made anonymously or with partial anonymity.  Partial anonymity grants will only show the name of your fund in the grant letter.

You have two options for using your donor advised fund to support charities outside the U.S.  You can recommend a grant to a US-based charity that works overseas, or you can recommend a grant to a qualified US intermediary charity that will, in turn, make a grant to your preferred organization. Contact us for more information.

You can recommend grants to charitable organizations that are tax-exempt under IRS Code Section 501(c)(3) and that are public charities under Code Section 509(a)(1), (2), or (3).  These eligible recipient charities also include religious organizations and educational institutions.

Under IRS regulations, we cannot approve grants recommended to pay for goods or services, legally binding pledges, dues, membership fees, tuition, goods from charitable auctions, admission fees (including bifurcated gifts), grants recommended to or for the benefit of an individual, for political campaigns or candidates. 

When submitting grants to a missionary, our Grants Team will reach out to you to confirm that the individual is not a relative or spouse of any of your relatives.  The grant will be issued only when this is confirmed and with a statement on the grant letter stating that the grant is subject to the full discretion and control of the grantee charity and to be used to support the missionary efforts of the named individual.

Click here to read about eligible and ineligible grant recipients in our Program Description and Guidelines.

You can recommend grants to charitable organizations that are tax-exempt under IRS Code Section 501(c)(3) and that are public charities under Code Section 509(a)(1), (2), or (3).  These eligible recipient charities also include religious organizations and educational institutions.

We have an extensive database of these qualified charities in DonorView that includes the most up-to-date information from the IRS.

If an organization is not currently listed in our database, this does not necessarily mean that a grant cannot be made to the organization. However, it will require further review.  If you don’t find your organization in the DonorView portal, you can recommend the grantee.  Please note that you don’t have to wait for approval to recommend the grant in the portal.  We will vet the organization once we receive the grant recommendation and will contact you if there are any problems.

The best way to recommend grants is via DonorView, our online portal.  You may also download a grant recommendation form from our Forms page, which you can complete and then email, mail, or fax to our Grants Team.  Keep in mind that the latter results in a longer processing time, as the grant recommendation has to be entered into the grants processing queue by our Grants Team.

Tax laws for donor advised funds require that you relinquish ownership and control over contributed assets. However, as a donor advisor, you retain the privilege to advise on: how your fund is named, how the funds are invested, how the funds are granted, and how your fund will carry on after your death. “Advising,” in contrast to “directing,” is the key to your receiving superior tax benefits.

This difference is typically due to interim market fluctuations and liquidation costs. Consult your tax advisor to determine your charitable tax deduction.

No.

Since we are a public charity, you pay no capital gains tax on the securities that you contribute to your donor advised fund. We typically pay no capital gains tax when we sell gifted securities.

Yes. We have extensive experience in accepting complex and hard-to-value assets. Please contact us early in your planning process.  Partnering with a leading organization in the country in processing gifts of complex assets, we will work with you and your trusted advisors to coordinate asset transfers and gift acceptance.

Because of our public charity status, your contributions qualify for the highest tax benefits available:

• You receive an immediate and maximum income tax deduction.
• You avoid capital gains tax.
• Your fund is not subject to estate taxes.
• Assets in your fund can grow tax free.
• If you are subject to the alternative minimum tax (AMT), your contribution may reduce your AMT tax liability.
• Under the “CARES Act” of 2020, donors can receive increased tax benefits for cash contributions up to 100% of AGI for contributions to funds sponsored by iGiftFund other than a donor advised fund.  This deduction can be enhanced by a Roth IRA conversion.