TIFIN Give Moves 80%+ of Grant Volume Electronically with Chariot Disbursements

A wealth tech platform that provides DAF solutions for major financial enterprises chose Chariot to eliminate the last mile of payment friction — and saw over 80% of grant volume move to instant electronic payment rails within the first 4 months.

  • 82%

    Grant volume paid electronically

  • $34.1M

    Granted in first 4 months with Chariot

  • 5,175

    Number of grants processed

"We're not going to say 'it's good enough.' The standard is ‘how can we be the very best.’ That's how we differentiate ourselves."
Paul LussowCEO, TIFIN Give

TIFIN Give is a technology-first philanthropy platform that helps advisors at wealth enterprises, broker-dealers, and asset managers harness donor-advised funds to drive growth and deepen client relationships. With strategic partnerships including SEI and SS&C ALPS Advisors, TIFIN Give provides a white-labeled, open-API experience featuring multi-generational giving, community campaigns, and flexible investment policies — positioning philanthropy as a growth lever within the advisor's existing tech stack.

When CEO Paul Lussow looked at the company's grant disbursement operations, he saw an area ripe for the same infrastructure modernization that had transformed other corners of financial services. The goal: get grant dollars to nonprofits as close to instantaneously as possible.

The Problem

TIFIN Give had previously relied on Bill.com for grant disbursements — a strong accounts payable product, but one that wasn't built for charitable giving. Charities had to sign up for a bill payment account. The experience felt like receiving an invoice, not a grant from a donor connecting with a cause. And operationally, the platform couldn't keep pace with TIFIN Give's volume and speed requirements.

Voided checks, IRS compliance verification, and KYC requirements made the last mile a persistent burden. Every nonprofit needed to be validated as a legitimate 501(c)(3). With tens of thousands of transactions, even a small exception rate created significant manual overhead. And each DAF sponsor solves these problems independently — duplicating effort, introducing risk, and missing the benefits of a shared network.

The deeper issue is that grant payments are structurally different from vendor payments. When you pay a contractor, you are fulfilling an invoice from them. For grants, you're sending money to nonprofits based on banking information they submitted to you, often with no advance notice to the nonprofit. That asymmetry creates risk exposure — from fraud risk to stale banking details — that standard accounts payable tools aren't designed to catch.

TIFIN Give's benchmark was T+4 from grant recommendation to nonprofit receiving funds. Good — but not fast enough for Give’s goal of near-instantaneous delivery.

The Solution

TIFIN Give partnered with Chariot Disbursements to modernize its grant payment infrastructure. Rather than continuing to invest in a repurposed payment system, the team made a strategic call: focus internal resources on the proprietary features that differentiate the platform — the advisor experience, family giving workflows, investment flexibility — and hand the last mile to a purpose-built specialist.

Paul draws an analogy to Wall Street's CRM evolution. Many firms built homegrown systems that became Frankensteins over time. The differentiator was never the CRM — it was the client experience on top of it. The same logic applies to grant payments.

Key capabilities through Chariot Disbursements:

  • Electronic payments — fast, secure transfers to verified nonprofits, with real-time status tracking on every grant
  • Identity and authority verification — Goes beyond standard KYC to confirm not just that a person is real, but that they are an authorized officer of the nonprofit receiving the funds — closing the gap that makes grant payments uniquely vulnerable to fraud
  • Ongoing nonprofit monitoring — Chariot continuously verifies grantee banking and nonprofit status, not just at onboarding — so stale details don't become costly exceptions
  • Network effect — When any provider on the network verifies a nonprofit, every other provider benefits. Nonprofits verify once instead of managing separate accounts per grantmaker
  • Exception handling — for grantees who don't claim their Chariot accounts, Chariot facilitates check delivery, manages returns, and resolves exceptions without TIFIN Give’s staff involvement
  • White-glove onboarding support — dedicated support for both TIFIN Give and their grantees, with rapid response to payment questions and on-demand technical support
  • Audit trail and reporting — Full payment history with documentation for compliance

The Results

Within months of going live, over 80% of TIFIN Give's grant payment dollar volume moved to instant electronic payments through Chariot. For nonprofits already in the Chariot network, payments arrive near-instantaneously — a dramatic improvement over the previous T+4 benchmark.

That speed is now something TIFIN Give's wealth enterprise partners can point to when talking with advisors and donors, turning a back-office improvement into a visible, client-facing differentiator.

"Just seeing these almost instantaneous payments feels very gratifying. Being able to communicate that to donors and seeing the adoption — it's been great to watch the money getting there faster."
Paul LussowCEO, TIFIN Give

The network effect has been one of the most meaningful advantages. With Chariot, nonprofit verification happens once. When any provider on the network onboards a nonprofit, every other provider's donors benefit immediately. For TIFIN Give, that means fewer exceptions, faster payments, and no more asking nonprofits to set up separate accounts for each grantmaker relationship.

As Paul puts it, the network compounds over time. The more DAF sponsors that join, the more nonprofits are verified, and the closer the entire ecosystem gets to instant, frictionless grant delivery.

With Chariot handling identity verification, authority validation, and ongoing banking monitoring, TIFIN Give's team can focus on what drives their business — building a better platform for advisors and donors — rather than managing the compliance and security complexity of grant delivery.

Advice to the Field

Paul's message to other DAF sponsors is direct: stop thinking of payment infrastructure as a competitive differentiator. It's not — just like homegrown CRMs weren't. The real differentiation is in the experience you build for advisors and donors. Outsourcing the last mile to a purpose-built partner lets you move faster on the things that actually matter.

He also encourages the sector to embrace a more commercial mindset. DAF sponsors may be nonprofits, but they operate in a commercial ecosystem. Their donors have consumer-grade expectations shaped by every other tech experience in their lives. If the giving experience feels stale next to Venmo or a modern banking app, that's a problem — and the longer you wait to modernize, the more painful the transition becomes.

Looking Ahead

Paul sees the DAF market growing significantly over the next decade, driven by the generational wealth transfer and younger donors' deeper commitment to philanthropy. What excites him most are the use cases that become possible when foundational infrastructure is in place. Impact investing through recallable grants, community giving campaigns, international grantmaking — none of these scale easily when every provider is independently solving payments and verification. Shared payment rails like Chariot Disbursements are what unlocks these bigger opportunities.

Interested in how Chariot Disbursements could modernize your grant payment process? Reach out to our team.

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