The 2025 Annual DAF Report was released on December 11, containing the first look at aggregate DAF activity numbers for 2024. The report is filled with record levels of giving, but also a host of new figures and different methods of segmenting data after the research effort changed hands for the first time ever. We’ve analyzed the full report and highlighted the key takeaways for fundraisers, but encourage everyone to review the great work by the DAF Research Collaborative for yourselves as well. 

The report found that in 2024, 3.56 million DAF accounts granted $65 billion to nonprofits and held $326 billion in assets. But the real story is what’s under these headline numbers. 

What Changed in the 2025 Report

1. New Team, and New Perspectives

The Annual DAF Report was previously produced by National Philanthropic Trust for nearly two decades and became a bellwether data source for anyone interested in the DAF sector. In 2025, an academic group - The DAF Research Collaborative - took the reins for the first time and will be independently handling the research and reporting moving forward. 

The DAF Research Collaborative was co-founded in 2018 by Dr. Dan Heist from Brigham Young University & Dr. Danielle Vance-McMullen from DePaul University. The group has expanded to include Dr. Jeff Williams from the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University, Dr. Genevieve Shaker from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and Rachel Sumsion, a philanthropy consultant.     

2. New Method of Data Segmentation 

Historically, the figures in the report were only broken down into 3 categories of DAFs - National, Community Foundation and Single-Issue Charity. This year, there have been additional sub-categories created, including National DAFs that serve primarily as donation processors, and Single-Issue Charities that are religiously affiliated or in higher education / healthcare sectors. This offers tremendous clarity on core DAF activity and differences between DAF types. 

Presumably, the “Donation Processor” DAF category includes DAF Sponsors that power workplace giving platforms (e.g., Benevity, Cyber Grants, YourCause, etc.) and complex asset services (e.g., Dechomai Foundation), although it’s not explicitly disclosed in the report.  

3. New Analysis 

A number of new figures were added to this year’s report, including a comparison of DAF activity relative to overall charitable giving and individual giving activity, as well as different methods to calculate DAF payout rates (percentage of assets paid out as grants each year). 

4. New DAFs included 

There was a significant increase in the number of DAFs included in this year’s report: 1,485, versus prior years’~1,150. 53% of the DAFs included are Community Foundations, 40% are Single Issue Charities and 7% are National DAFs. To maintain a consistent comparison, this year’s researchers made meaningful revisions to prior years’ figures by including more DAF providers in the analysis retroactively. 

5. New Opportunities for Further Learning

For the first time, this year’s report includes an entire technical appendix that readers can use  to perform their own analyses on all of the source figures cited in the report.

6. New Context Shared 

We especially appreciated the extra disclosure on how DAF providers all have different fiscal years, so while it is a “2024” report, that relies on FY2024 filings from each DAF, these numbers include parts of Calendar Year 2023 and 2024 in some cases. Additionally, there’s an entire section on the macroeconomic environment’s effect on philanthropy, including how stock market movements and significant economic crises can have meaningful impacts on DAF activity.

Top Takeaways 

1. $65 billion in DAF Giving, a New Record

2024 DAF grants to nonprofits of $64.89 billion represented a 19% increase over 2023. Growth was primarily driven by Standard National DAFs and Religiously-Affiliated DAFs, who collectively made up 72% of overall DAF grantmaking, and saw grant volume grow 28% and 41%, respectively. Only $3.77 billion of DAF grant volume was from Donation Processors, which was flat YoY ($3.81 billion). $65 billion in DAF giving is a new record, after 2023 saw a modest YoY increase of 2%. Overall, DAF giving is up 85% since 2020. 

It’s also helpful to analyze DAF giving relative to the activity of Private Foundations. Despite private foundations being 5x larger than DAFs ($1.6 trillion in AUM), they granted out less than 2x as much as DAFs did ($119 billion).

2. DAF Grants represent 17% of total Individual Giving

While the report presents DAF contributions' share of individual giving at 22.8% in 2024, we reframed the analysis to see how the volume of DAF grants compared to total individual giving (17% in 2024). It’s important to remember that these are imperfect comparisons and likely an underestimation, given that DAF contributions are from Fiscal Year 2024 (including significant 2023 data), and the Total Individual Giving is from Calendar Year 2024. That said, we find the analysis of DAF granting compared to individual giving is more representative of the impact DAFs have on nonprofit fundraising. 

This is also comparable to findings of the DAF Fundraising Report, which analyzed a broad range of data related to the impact of DAFs on nonprofit fundraising more specifically. 

3. DAF Payout Rate of 25.3%, compared to 8.1% for Private Foundations

The overall Payout Rate of 25.3% represented a modest increase from 2023 of 1.3 percentage points. This section of the report was significantly enhanced YoY, showing three different payout rate calculation methods, as well as showing payout rates that exclude Donation Processors for the first time. Because the asset volume and grant volume of Donation Processors is such a small percentage of the total, their exclusion has a minor impact on overall payout rates.  

Using the traditional method of calculation, Standard National Sponsors’ payout rate was 23%, Community Foundations' payout rate was 22% and single issue charities’ payout rate was 37%. Using more conservative calculation methods results in overall payout rates over 15% every year since 2020. 

For context, the traditional method of calculation for Private Foundations results in an 8.1% payout rate for 2024. 

It was also interesting to see that the sub-segment with the lowest payout rate was DAFs held by institutions in the Higher Education & Hospital sectors, which was at 10.4% in 2024. This is a unique category of more traditional operating nonprofits that also hold DAF accounts for their supporters.

4. $326 billion in DAF Assets, doubled since 2020 

The overall size of DAF accounts grew by 27.5% YoY to $325.45 billion, a new record and double the $165.81 billion in assets in 2020. The YoY change in DAF asset value is highly correlated to moves in the stock market, which had banner years in 2023 and 2024 - S&P 500 rose 24.2% in Calendar Year 2023 & 23.3% in Calendar Year 2024. This correlation is due to the fact that DAF Assets are largely invested in public markets, and that fundholders are commonly funding these accounts with both new assets with appreciated stock assets. 

5. 3.5 million DAF Accounts

This represents an 18.4% YoY increase, but the surge here is mostly attributable to the inclusion of more Donation Processor DAFs in the report, which made up 2.85 million of total accounts. Luckily, there is a disclosure in the technical appendix where readers can see the growth in DAF accounts excluding Donation processors: 710,634 in 2024, up 54% since 2020. 

Fidelity Charitable discloses that there’s an average of 1.6 users per DAF account, meaning that an estimated 1.14 million people are using traditional individual DAF accounts. 

6. Contributions into DAFs Surged to $90 billion, a New Record

After a sharp decline in 2023 (-14%), contributions into DAF accounts rose by 37% YoY in 2024 to $89.64 billion. Similar to total assets in DAFs, DAF contributions are highly correlated to stock market performance, which can lead to more volatility in this figure YoY than other reported metrics. When folks see significant gains in their personal investments, they are more likely to contribute some of their holdings into their DAF accounts and maximize their tax benefits. According to DAFgiving360, the second largest DAF sponsor in the country, 63% of their DAF contributions in FY25 (ending in June) were in the form of non-cash assets. 

This figure is also highly affected by tax and regulatory changes. Given the tax overhaul going into place in 2026, we would expect another significant increase to contributions in 2025.

7. Average Account size of $455,495 in 2024 for Standard DAF Accounts  

The topline average account size reported this year was $91,611. However, this is not the most informative data point, given it includes more than 2 million DAF accounts at Donation Processor DAFs. The separation of Donation Processor DAF accounts provides a new, more realistic look at the average account size for traditional DAF holders. For context, the average account size at a Donation Processor DAF was $968, an extreme deviation from other DAF sponsors. 

Without Donation Processor DAFs, there were $324 billion in assets across 710,634 DAF accounts, leading to an average account size of $455,495. This average grew 19.3% YoY. 

It’s important to recall that averages are highly skewed by outlier figures. We could potentially better understand DAF donor demographics if there were an overall median figure provided, but that would require significantly more disaggregated data disclosure by every DAF provider. That said, there are large individual DAF sponsors that do disclose median account size - both Fidelity Charitable and Jewish Communal Fund report a median account size around $25,000, which provides a good estimate for the industry.

What does this mean for Fundraisers? 

The growth in DAF giving continues to grow exponentially, reaching a scale that cannot be ignored by nonprofit fundraisers. There’s over a million people using DAF accounts to manage their individual giving, making up an ever-increasing amount of philanthropy. And these figures are lagging - all indicators are pointing to 2025 being an even bigger year of growth than 2024 (we’ll have to wait another year to know the exact figures). 

With this in mind, it’s time to make 2026 the year that DAFs get more specific focus in your fundraising strategy. You should be asking, how are we engaging, soliciting and stewarding this incredibly important segment of our donors? How are we making sure that any donor with a DAF is able to easily donate those dollars that are already pre-committed to philanthropy? 

These need to be the questions asked in your planning sessions and at your board meetings. DAF knowledge needs to be a core, fundamental part of any fundraiser’s education and training. Visit Chariot’s blog for a robust set of educational and training materials suited to any level of fundraising experience.

Important notes and reminders about the analysis 

• Lagging, imperfect indicator: This report deals with a colossal amount of data that is filed with the IRS at different points during the year, depending on the DAF provider. 27% of DAFs included in the study have a fiscal year end (FYE) in June, while 62% are in December. Those with a FYE in June are actually reporting 50% 2023 and 50% 2024 data. Since the research team reviews publicly-filed data only, there’s also a ~9 month delay until that data is available. So while this is a great directional source of information on the scale and performance of the DAF market, it’s wise to consult the Annual Reports from leading individual DAF sponsors throughout the year for a more real-time pulse of DAF activity.   

• Donation Processor DAFs: The inclusion of a separate line item for Donation Processor DAFs in this year’s report provides a significant improvement in the specificity of the data. The dynamics and demographics of these accountholders, largely using the DAF as a pass-through as part of their workplace giving programs, are immensely different than those of the traditional DAF accountholders that most fundraisers might be thinking of. This new data standard wherein we can isolate Donation Processor DAFs from the calculations gives us a more specific and accurate view of the activity level and opportunity set with DAF donors. 

• Past figures revised: Researchers are constantly revising past numbers for each key figure in every year of analysis. That said, it’s important to refer to the updated values for prior years when making multi-year comparisons.  

• DAF-to-DAF transfers: This year’s version of the DAF Report incorporated industry feedback to provide more specific and transparent DAF data in its analysis. However, the one area of critique that wasn’t incorporated into the analysis was the impact of DAF-to-DAF transfers on these numbers. The topic was addressed in the technical appendix, sharing that the reason they couldn’t be excluded or itemized systematically in the research is because DAF-to-DAF transfers aren’t singled out in the IRS Schedule D data used for this report. Given that the vast majority of DAF sponsors analyzed in this report are also operating nonprofits that fundraise and receive DAF donations themselves (e.g., Community Foundations, Higher Education institutions, etc.), it’s incredibly difficult to parse out which “donations” from one DAF sponsor to another are actually a DAF-to-DAF transfer, versus a DAF donation.