Announcing the DAF Winners of the 2025 DAF Awards!
- Mitch Stein
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
After sharing the nonprofit winners of the first ever DAF Day Awards earlier this month, we’re now excited to share the DAF winners! We’re thrilled to recognize four DAF sponsors that fully embraced the national holiday for DAF giving, testing out new avenues to engage their communities and grow their programs.
One of the biggest successes of DAF Day 2025 was the expansion in proactive DAF participation - with 30 DAFs fully committing to the initiative, and many more engaging in smaller ways. From major community foundations, to financial institutions, to tech forward platforms, DAFs everywhere took advantage of this special opportunity to bring attention to the power of donor-advised fund giving.
Category 1: Most DAFpay Gifts Made
DAF Day 2025 set new records for DAFpay usage, but no DAF had a stronger showing than Daffy!
There were more DAFpay gifts made via Daffy on DAF Day than any other sponsor in the country. Overall, Daffy reported a 69% increase in DAF Day giving volume vs. 2024 - and a 32% increase in average gift size. Daffy also saw a 70% increase in new account openings on DAF Day 2025 vs. 2024.
Daffy’s VP of Marketing, Chelsea Paul, shared that “This growth underscores Daffy’s momentum in attracting first-time DAF donors and expanding the movement for everyday generosity.” Daffy’s campaign included email and social comms, promo codes for new accounts and a special give away of $100 added donations to 10 donors that gave on DAF Day.
Category 2: Most Innovative DAF Day Campaign Element
While there was tremendous energy around DAF Day at many participating providers, one organization took things to the next level: The Sacramento Region Community Foundation!
They held an office party for DAF Day, complete with a special cake and a team celebration video. This effort to mark DAF Day achieved an important goal of the movement: building awareness and engagement around DAFs internally as much as externally. Particularly at Community Foundations, where too many people in the community remain unaware of their local DAF offering.
Category 3: Most Compelling DAF Day Communication
We heard from countless DAF Sponsors that DAF Day 2025 actually spurred them to talk about DAFs in their public marketing for the first time. Be it in newsletters, teach ins, email comms or social media - DAFs were driving a positive conversation on DAF giving everywhere:
The Sea Forward Fund shared an educational carousel on LinkedIn, Foundation Source hosted a live webinar and TIFIN released a special podcast episode. This was a hotly-contested category so we had to recognize two DAFs: The Arizona Community Foundation and The Community Foundation of Muncie and Delaware County in Indiana!
The Arizona Community Foundation leaned into the giving goals of DAF Day, actively encouraging their fundholders to take action on October 9th with direct communications and a powerful series of LinkedIn posts (here, here and here). It also showed their nonprofit community how mission-aligned they are, going the extra mile to encourage more grant-making in a year where their DAF giving has already set new records.
The Community Foundation of Muncie and Delaware County sent a series of beautifully designed emails to their fundholders leading up to and on DAF Day. The series framed DAF Day as a way to get more intentional and engaged with your philanthropy, drawing attention to the power of DAFs and the infectious nature of generosity.
DAF Day Impact for DAF Programs
Beyond the awareness building, we also heard powerful reports of the quantitative impact of DAF Day across many key goals for participating DAFs. A few of our favorite anecdotes are below:
Engaging Fundholders: One participant used DAF Day to reach out to fundholders that hadn’t yet recommended a grant in 2025 - 10% of those accounts responded with grants totalling over $460,000!
Accelerating Contributions: A new Community Foundation shared that their DAF Day appeal led two fundholders to make large contributions to their accounts in October, doubling their program size!
Generating New Leads: One community foundation shared that 5 new prospective fundholders reached out on DAF Day after their efforts to promote their program!
We will continue sharing stories and insights learned from DAF Day 2025 leading up to next year’s campaign. In the meantime, we encourage anyone involved with DAF Day to please take the participant survey to share your successes and feedback.