Accept donations from Donor-Advised Funds (DAF)

Give Lively supports one-time donations made from Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) through DAFpay powered by Chariot. The DAFpay button on Give Lively donation forms lets donors make charitable grants to nonprofits through their DAF providers – a seamless giving flow.

What are DAF payments?

A Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) is a charitable giving account to which donors contribute funds and receive an immediate tax deduction. Donors can then recommend grants from the DAF giving account to nonprofits in smaller amounts of their desire and over as much time as they like.

How do DAF payments work?

The option for donors to make a one-time donation from a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) is automatically enabled on all Give Lively-powered donation forms unless a nonprofit chooses to opt out (see below). At present, it can be enabled/disabled for all donation forms, not on a campaign-by-campaign basis.

To see DAFpay functionality in action as a donor would experience it, go to https://secure.dafpay.com/demo and use the provided credentials. Note that the features on this demo form are not necessarily identical to those on Give Lively donation forms.

Nonprofits should read through both the For nonprofits and For donors sections below to understand the full DAFpay experience. For more detailed information about Chariot and DAFpay, visit the Chariot Help Center. 

For nonprofits

Each of the following steps is important, some of them only to set up DAFpay but others to keep in mind for each and every DAF grant received.  

Enable/disable DAFpay

DAFpay is automatically enabled on all Give Lively-powered donation forms unless a nonprofit has opted out. Either way, to enable or disable DAFpay:

1. Log in to the Nonprofit Admin Portal.
2. Click "Settings" in the left-hand navigation bar. 
3. Select "Payment Processing" from the dropdown that opens up.
4. Look for the Chariot section and choose to “Connect to Chariot” or “Disconnect from Chariot” and follow the prompts.

Connect a Chariot account

Nonprofits must claim (for new users) or connect (for existing users) a DAF payment account from Chariot in order to enable electronic disbursement of DAF grants and benefit from several automations. 

• Nonprofits receive an email from Chariot with an invitation to either: (1) claim a new DAF payment account or (2) connect an existing Chariot account. This happens when DAFpay is first enabled for the organization through Give Lively. This happens when a DAF grant to the nonprofit has been initiated.
• Once a Chariot account is claimed/connected, most future DAF grants are disbursed electronically (see more below).
• If a Chariot account is not claimed/connected within 60 days, grants are disbursed by paper check (checks valid for 90 days).

Important note about claiming/connecting an account: Nonprofits that do not claim/connect a Chariot account are not able to declare a grant as “Received,” meaning the helpful Give Lively automations outlined here are not possible.

View DAF grant data

DAF grant data appears immediately (even while a disbursement is pending) in the Line Items (All) data report available through the Nonprofit Admin Portal. It includes the following details:

• Payment Method – daf
• Processor – Chariot
• Disbursement Method – DAF Grant
• Status – “Pending" (being processed/disbursed), “Succeeded” (received by nonprofit) or “Failed” (the donor cancels the grant)
• Chariot Tracking ID – unique alphanumeric identifier
• Chariot External Grant ID – unique alphanumeric identifier
• Payment Platform Charge ID – unique alphanumeric identifier

Await DAF grant disbursement

How DAF grants are disbursed depends on whether a nonprofit has claimed/connected its Chariot account and whether the DAF provider is a Chariot Disbursement Partner.

• ‍When a nonprofit has claimed/connected its Chariot account:
  • If the DAF provider is a Chariot Disbursement Partner (see list here), then the funds are sent to the nonprofit via electronic transfer within 1-2 business days.
  • If the DAF provider is not a Chariot Disbursement Partner, then the funds are sent directly by the DAF provider via electronic transfer or paper check, depending on the individual DAF provider. The processing timeframe is a function of the DAF provider as well. 
• ‍When a nonprofit has not claimed/connected its Chariot account within 60 days of a DAFpay grant:
  • Chariot’s 501(c)(3) disbursement partner, DAFpay Network, issues a paper check to the IRS-registered address of the nonprofit. 
  • DAFpay Network levies a surcharge of $25 or 10% of the check amount, whichever is lower.

Keep in mind that there are three primary DAFpay disbursement channels:

• Chariot Disbursement (electronic transfer to nonprofits with a Chariot account) – If a DAF provider uses Chariot Disbursement, i.e. is a Chariot Disbursement Partner, then the DAF grant is deposited electronically within 1-2 business days into a nonprofit’s Chariot Deposit Account. When the grant is deposited, it is also automatically marked as “Received” on the Chariot dashboard (see more about this below). The nonprofit must then trigger a transfer to the nonprofit’s bank account.
• Directly from DAF provider (electronic transfer or paper check to nonprofits with a Chariot account) – If a DAF provider is not a Chariot Disbursement Partner, then the DAF grant is sent via electronic transfer or paper check directly to the nonprofit, according to the provider’s processing tools and timeline. Nonprofits should manually acknowledge these grants as “Received" through the Chariot dashboard (see more about this below).
• DAFpay Network (paper check to nonprofits without a Chariot account) – In all cases, nonprofits that have not claimed a Chariot account within 60 days of a DAF grant receive that grant via paper check sent from DAFpay Network (Chariot’s 501(c)(3) disbursement partner). There is a check surcharge of $25 or 10% of the check amount, whichever is lower. Nonprofits are unable to acknowledge a grant as “Received,” meaning the automations outlined directly below are not possible.

Mark DAF grants as received

It is important for nonprofits to confirm each DAF grant as “Received" on the Chariot dashboard. Not all DAF grants need to be manually confirmed, but it doesn’t hurt to check each one.

A grant acknowledged by the nonprofit as received:

• triggers an email confirmation receipt sent to the donor (donors initially receive an email confirming that the DAF grant has been initiated, but must wait for it to be received before a receipt is sent)
• shifts the DAF grant status from “Pending” to “Succeeded” in the Line Items (All) data report
• sends data for Salesforce/Zapier syncs (see below).

Important note: Nonprofits that are sent a paper check payment but do not have a Chariot account are unable to declare a grant as “Received,” meaning the automations outlined above are not possible. Give Lively does not have the ability to mark a nonprofit’s DAF grants as “Received."

See DAF grants in Salesforce/Zapier

When a DAF grant is acknowledged as received (see above) by a nonprofit, data flows through Salesforce and Zapier integrations. Pending grants (that have not yet been marked as received by a nonprofit) do not appear in Salesforce or trigger a zap through Zapier. 

For donors

Donors are responsible for choosing, creating and provisioning their own Donor-Advised Funds. Then, to make a DAF grant through a Give Lively-powered donation form, donors:

Choose a donation amount 

As is the case for all payment methods, donors first enter the amount of their grant on the Give Live-powered donation form. 

• DAF payments are available on Give Lively for one-time grants only – recurring grants do not show the DAFpay payment option. 
• DAF grants must be in whole dollar amounts (no cents), so the desired grant is rounded (up or down), if necessary. 

Select “Donor Advised Fund/DAFpay” as the payment method

If not disabled by the nonprofit, the DAFpay option appears alongside other available payment methods (card, bank, Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, Venmo).

Understand fees

While Give Lively does not charge a fee for DAF grants (or any other payment method), Chariot does subtract a processing fee from each DAF grant, which donors can choose to cover. 

• The Chariot processing fee is 2.9% on all DAF payments.
• Since DAF grants must be in whole dollar amounts (no cents) fee coverage is also rounded separately (up or down) to the nearest whole dollar, except when the fee amount is less than $1, in which case it is always rounded up to $1. 

Log in to the DAF provider

After choosing the “Donor Advised Fund/DAFpay” button, donors log in to their DAF provider via Chariot’s DAFpay popup. Following the prompts, donors initiate the DAF grant.

Note that if a particular DAF provider is not covered by DAFpay, then that provider can’t be used to grant DAF funds via DAFpay on Give Lively.

Confirm and submit the grant

Once a final amount is set in the Chariot DAFpay popup, donors confirm and submit the grant. Donors are then automatically returned to the Give Lively donation form’s thank-you screen confirming the submitted donation.

• Donors have the ability to increase or decrease the amount of the grant within Chariot’s DAFpay popup. All changes are retained on the Give Lively form as well. Note that donors who increase their grant total within Chariot’s DAFpay popup may be able to give beyond Give Lively’s maximum donation amount. 
• That said, any changes to the grant amount made in the Chariot DAFpay popup automatically turn off fee coverage.

Receive followup communications

Donors receive email communications following grant submission.

• Donors get an immediate email confirming that the DAF grant has been initiated. This is not a receipt since the nonprofit has not yet received any funds. 
• It can take from several days to several weeks for DAF providers to process the grant. (Learn more about the types of grant disbursement.) During this time, donors can cancel the grant through their DAF provider. 
• Once the grant is marked as received by the nonprofit, donors receive an email confirmation receipt.