The DFR is the only large-scale research done on nonprofit’s own DAF giving data, and for its third year the team is aiming to significantly expand the data pool, pieces of analysis and applications for the findings. 

Today Chariot, K2D Strategies & AKwire announced the third edition of our groundbreaking analysis, The DAF Fundraising Report, for 2026. There is an open call for nonprofits to participate and a mandatory session on October 30th at 12pm ET for participating nonprofits. In this session we will go over the data requirements in depth to set everyone up for success submitting their data in early 2026. 

Our key goals with this research effort are:

1. Create a greater understanding of the true impact of DAF giving on nonprofit fundraising, and monitor changes over time. 

2. Establish shared best practices around DAF data that enable more strategic decision making around DAF fundraising. 

3. Amplify the specific ways nonprofits are finding success, so that the entire sector can grow the amount of DAF giving together. 

"No Kid Hungry participated and contributed to the 2025 study to understand how our program compared to the overall report. The 2025 report revealed that 2024 DAF “conversions” resulted in 178% increase in giving, and we have been leaning into strategies across all our fundraising efforts based on this data. We expect to drive even more DAF giving and are looking forward to participating again in 2026!"

Karen Barr, Managing Director of Individual Giving, Share Our Strength 

History of Report

The DAF Fundraising Report began in 2024 as a collaboration between Chariot & K2D Strategies to fill a critical gap in the available research on DAFs. There was great analysis being done by National Philanthropic Trust, The DAF Research Collaborative and Giving Compass / The Lilly School of Philanthropy, but no one was examining data from the nonprofit’s perspective. The impact of the growth in DAF giving on nonprofits themselves remained a mystery - and a frustrating black box for many in the sector. 

As we embarked on this effort, we quickly learned why no one had tackled this before - it’s incredibly difficult! Nonprofit practices vary significantly across the sector and most organizations did not have a way to easily report on their DAF giving levels accurately, let alone perform more advanced analysis on donor behavior. Not only did our efforts help the participating organizations improve their data tracking, our establishment of best practices, resources and benchmarks have moved countless organizations around the country forward as well. 

For the 2025 report, we also brought in AKwire as our official data partner and their contributions have set this report up to efficiently grow participation and improve the overall analysis in the years to come.  

Goals for the 2026 DAF Fundraising Report

• Growth: We are aiming to double the scale of this report in terms of unique participants and amount of DAF giving data.

• Insights: We want to expand the research to include analysis of DAF giving for different types of nonprofits, so that we can offer more specific recommendations. 

• Timeline: We are targeting an early-May release. The sooner in the year that organizations have this information in their hands, the more impact it will have on their fundraising success.  

Reasons to Participate

This report simply would not exist without the involvement of dozens of nonprofit partners. They have put in the work to review their data and share anonymized gift details with us to make this large scale analysis possible. They also keep coming back year after year because they are seeing significant value from participating for their own organizations, such as:  

1. Data improvements: The submission process creates an impetus to clean up existing data & institute consistent data entry practices. The Chariot, K2D & AKwire teams also provide hands-on, expert guidance.  

2. Strategy: The results provide concrete evidence on the increasing importance of DAF giving, benchmarks to measure success and justification for strategic investments.     

3. Collaboration: Participation leads to greater collaboration across roles and teams internally, breaking down silos and increasing DAF understanding to spot more opportunities across the organization. 

4. Communications: The results of the report make it easy & compelling to present to leadership to understand gravity and importance of the developments around DAF giving 

5. Visibility: Hundreds of DAF leaders are reviewing this report and using it in their own presentations. Participants are intentionally highlighted throughout the report via case studies, testimonials and specific call outs for inventive approaches to DAF fundraising. 

“Participating in the DAF Fundraising Report for the past two years has been critical to our DAF Strategy at the March of Dimes. It helped us improve our data practices and then quantify the impact of our investments, like our roll out of DAFpay. In 2024, we more than doubled our DAF giving year-over-year.” 

Karyn DeMartini, VP of Major, Principal & Planned Giving, The March of Dimes 

Next Steps

• At least one person from your team needs to sign up for the mandatory kick off webinar on Thursday October 30 at 12pm ET. We will review the exact process, requirements and timeline for data submission.  

• It’s never too early to start improving your DAF data tracking. Try running these 5 tests to QA your data to make your life easier during the busy giving season. 

Requirement to Participate

1. DAF gifts have to be consistently coded in your database. 

2. All PII needs to be masked with unique donor IDs (no identifying donor details should be shared in your submission). 

3. Your DAF Revenue in 2025 should be at least $100,000 and your total revenue from individual giving should be at least $500,000. 

4. Ability to supply all historical individual giving data from 2021 - 2025, both from DAF and non-DAF giving.