DAF Day Is 3 Weeks Away. Here's Exactly How to Get Ready.

We're exactly three weeks away from DAF Day. On October 8, 2026, nonprofits and DAF providers across the country will do a final rally to put more DAF gifts towards nonprofit missions.

Any nonprofit can participate by raising awareness for DAFs and promoting DAF giving to your audience, and it's not too late to start. 4,400 organizations took part in 2025, four times as many as the year before, and the number of participating DAF providers grew six times over.

Consider this your final pre-DAF Day reminder checklist:

Download the marketing toolkit. Download the free marketing toolkit which includes email templates and editable graphics, designed to be low lift for your team.
Get listed on the DAF Day Giving Page. Add your preferred DAF giving URL and your logo to your Chariot account so donors can find you and give directly to your mission. Square logos work best since they display in circles. Find specific steps here.
- New to Chariot? Claim your Chariot Deposit Account* here.
Look at last year's creative award winners for ideas. Read our recap of the 2025 DAF Day Award winners to get inspiration on creative ways to engage your community and show up on DAF Day.

Read on for a closer look at each of these, plus DAFpay fundraising tips and everything else to have in place before October 8.

Put the nonprofit marketing toolkit to work

The free nonprofit marketing toolkit includes email templates you can use to tell your donors and board members about DAF Day. We just added two new templates: a post-gift thank-you email and an email announcing your DAF Day results, so your follow-up is ready before the first gift arrives.

The toolkit also includes editable Canva templates for asking donors for their support, plus a "Get a DAF" guide. Pass the guide around internally to get your whole team fluent in DAFs, and share it with donors who want to learn more about DAFs and how to choose one.

Ways to maximize DAFpay for DAF Day

For every organization

Weave DAF giving messaging and payment info into all of your donor communications: QR codes at in-person events (in your presentation slides or on table cards), email campaigns, direct mail, and anywhere else donors hear from you. As you write, keep in mind that DAF donors tend to think long term, so the messaging you use with major gift donors and supporters who stay engaged through volunteering and ongoing giving will resonate with them too.

Create a dedicated DAF landing page. Your ways to give page needs to include a description of what a DAF is. A dedicated landing page is your opportunity to pitch directly to DAF donors, so you can lead instead with what DAF support makes possible for your organization. Spell out the URL, like yourorganization.org/donor-advised-fund rather than /daf, since donors don't always think of their giving account as a "DAF."

Here are a few great examples:

Whichever page is home to your DAF giving experience, a dedicated landing page or your ways to give page, add it to the DAF Giving URL field in your account settings so you appear on the DAF Day Giving Page.

If you don't have DAFpay yet

Make it as easy as possible for donors to grant to you: share your correct mailing address and EIN anywhere donors will look for them, including your giving pages and your DAF Day communications.

Even better, add DAFpay before October 8. DAFpay is available through 70+ fundraising platform partners, so check our integrations page to see if your fundraising platform already offers one. Transaction fees and other fundraising platform fees may apply.

If you have DAFpay through your fundraising platform

Make the donation form with your DAFpay button the destination for all of your DAF Day promotion: your QR codes, your email campaigns, and the DAF Giving URL in your account settings.

If you have standalone DAFpay buttons

Standalone DAFpay buttons and tiles, available on our paid gift processing plans, give you the most control over where DAFpay appears and how you track it. Our new help center article on DAFpay marketing best practices walks through everything in this section in more detail.

Lead with the DAFpay tile, then reinforce with buttons. Embed the DAFpay tile at the top of your ways to give page. It mimics the look of a standard donation form, so DAF donors can start their gift the moment they land. Then place DAFpay buttons throughout the rest of the page as additional reminders while donors scroll. Either way, donors can complete their gift in a few clicks.

Set up tracking before the gifts arrive. Create custom views in your Chariot dashboard so you can follow DAFpay gifts as they come through on DAF Day. With standalone buttons and tiles, the URL of the page each gift came from passes through with the gift, so you can track different campaigns separately.

If you're interested in a subscription upgrade, reach out to our team at contact@givechariot.com.

For DAF providers: partner with us

If you're a DAF provider, you can partner with us on DAF Day by agreeing to share your DAF Day results so we can report on the aggregate total giving across partners to capture DAF Day’s impact. Fill out this form to commit to sharing your results and encouraging your donors to participate. Our DAF provider marketing toolkit includes email templates to remind your donors about DAF Day and editable Canva templates you can use on social media.

Enter the DAF Day Awards

DAF Day wraps up with awards recognizing the most creative and effective campaigns of the year, and this year's winners will be announced live at our next webinar. Here is what's up for grabs.

Nonprofit Awards

Most DAFpay Gifts Made
Most Creative Social Post
Most Compelling DAF Day Email
Most Effective DAF Day Mailer
Most Innovative DAF Day Campaign Element

DAF Sponsor Awards

Most DAFpay Gifts Made
Most Innovative DAF Day Campaign Element
Most Compelling DAF Day Communication

Submit your entries through the DAF Day Awards application, which includes submission instructions for each category. For inspiration, take a look at the 2025 DAF Day Award winners.

Join us live: the DAF Day Awards Ceremony

Register for the DAF Day Awards Ceremony on Thursday, October 15 at 12:00 PM ET. We'll recap DAF Day 2026, reflect on what we learned together, and announce this year's award winners live.

Catch up on the DAF Day webinar series

If you missed any of our DAF Day webinars, including DAF Fundraising for Smaller Nonprofits, Curing Your DAF Data, and our recent AMA, you can read the recaps or watch the recordings on our webinars page.

Every gift made through a DAF on DAF Day moves a nonprofit closer to its mission. We can't wait to see what your organization accomplishes on October 8.

Have questions? Email the Chariot team at dafday@givechariot.com.

*Chariot is a financial technology company, not a bank. Chariot Deposit Accounts are provided by Column N.A., Member FDIC.