DAF Day is the first and only giving day dedicated to donor-advised funds. In its third year, the campaign rallies thousands of nonprofits, dozens of DAF sponsors, and millions of donors around a single day each October to inspire more giving from the hundreds of billions of dollars already committed inside DAF accounts. We kicked off DAF Day 2026 alongside Shayla Titley from The Public Theater and Chelsea Paul from Daffy to unveil a host of new and improved resources to help nonprofits and DAFs make the most of the day.
In this article you’ll find key action items for participants, a recap of prior DAF Day learnings, and all of the campaign elements available to nonprofits and DAF providers for 2026.
Contents
- Your initial checklist
- Where did DAF Day come from?
- What happened in prior DAF Days
- Introducing DAF Day III and the four-month campaign leading up to October 8, 2026
- New messaging and goals
- Revamped website and giving page
- Social media
- Overhauled marketing toolkit
- New webinar schedule
- What it means to participate
- Why your organization should join
- Your initial checklist (recap)
Your initial checklist
We’re four months away from DAF Day III, and it’s a great time to get plugged in.
1. Get on the DAF Day Giving Page
The DAF Day Giving Page displays participants to donors and links them to each organization’s preferred DAF giving page. Organizations shown on the page are:
- Verified by Chariot, which enrolls them for electronic grant payments. Claim your Chariot account.
- Have added a preferred DAF giving page URL in the settings of their Chariot account.
2. Share your excitement
The official DAF Day III promo video is live. Share this post from the DAF Day LinkedIn page to spread the word and tell people what you’re looking forward to about DAF Day this year.
3. Sign up for all the updates
4. Download your toolkit
5. Register for training webinars
See the full DAF Day III webinar series and register.
Where did DAF Day come from?
DAF Day started with data, and a problem. The first edition of Chariot and K2D Strategies’ DAF Fundraising Report showed median annual DAF giving growth of 30% across participating nonprofits, dramatically higher than non-DAF giving trends. But the growth was uneven. Some organizations were seeing DAF revenue grow rapidly. Others were leaving DAF dollars on the table. The gap was almost entirely about awareness and activation.
The 2026 edition of the report, published a few weeks before this kickoff, reinforced the scale of the opportunity:
- DAF donors give 23 times as much per gift on average compared to non-DAF donors.
- DAF donors retain at a rate 13 percentage points higher per year than non-DAF donors.
- When an existing donor switches to DAF giving, their annual gift to the same organization increases by more than 10x on average.
The potential is enormous, but it depends on nonprofits and DAF sponsors actively prompting their communities to use their DAFs.
We knew that any one organization’s effort to engage DAF donors would be exponentially more powerful if it could be coordinated across many participants. A single day on the calendar, focused on DAFs, with a shared narrative and shared resources, would amplify what any individual campaign could do on its own. That’s the idea behind DAF Day.
Shayla put the value of that coordination plainly:
“Prior to that, it was just kind of passive. We would respond when the donor let us know that they were going to be sending in or recommending a grant from their donor-advised fund. DAF Day allowed us to say, you know what, this will be a moment that we can talk about it. And we also know other people will be talking about it. So it’s an amplified message. There are a range of organizations talking about it, and this just helped to amplify the reason why people should be giving through their donor-advised funds.”
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And Chelsea, from the DAF sponsor side, described the awareness gap DAF Day was built to close:
“I was so excited because it was something we had thought about at Daffy quite a lot. There was really little awareness of who the donor-advised fund was actually serving — from the donor side, as well as nonprofits. There’s this misconception that it’s just for the ultra, ultra wealthy and reserved for those kind of major gifts. But based on the fundraising data, as well as what we see at Daffy ourselves, our largest donation to date was $8 million, but our median donation on the platform is just $100.”
What happened in prior DAF Days
Across two campaigns, DAF Day has grown from an idea into activation by thousands of nonprofits and dozens of DAF sponsors, reaching millions of donors with DAF-specific messaging for the first time. The activations have spanned social campaigns, internal events, creative direct mail, and even ads in the Wall Street Journal and a billboard in Times Square!
The stories of what year-one and year-two activations produced for participating organizations are now what attract new participants every year.
Benefits for nonprofits. See the 2025 DAF Day Award winners on the nonprofit side for a full set of creative activations and the results they produced.
Benefits for DAF sponsors. See the 2025 DAF Day Award winners on the DAF sponsor side for examples of how DAF providers engaged their fundholders and supported nonprofits.
The most concrete examples from the kickoff conversation:
The Public Theater turned $600 donors into $5,000 donors by mentioning DAFs explicitly. Shayla shared an example from a seat-naming campaign at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, where The Public asked existing members at the $100-$600 level whether they would like to name a seat for $5,000 using their donor-advised fund. Many said yes. The full story is featured in The DAF Ask That Led Donors to Double Their Gifts in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Daffy saw a 70% year-over-year increase in DAF Day donation volume in 2025. Chelsea shared that Daffy processed roughly $400,000 in donations on DAF Day 2025, with the surrounding week running into the millions. The campaign also drove a 70% lift in new account openings during the run-up to DAF Day. See Daffy’s full DAF Day case study for the strategy and outcomes.
Introducing DAF Day III and the four-month campaign leading up to October 8, 2026
New messaging and goals
In Chariot’s role as the organizer of DAF Day, we’ve adopted a new motto for 2026: Move Billions, Faster. Three pillars sit underneath that goal:
- Increased adoption of electronic grant payments. Money should physically move faster from DAFs into the hands of nonprofits.
- Establishing DAF data best practices. Better tracking unlocks better stewardship, better attribution, and better strategy.
- Educating nonprofits on how to best inspire DAF giving. Most DAF donors are already in the database. They just need a specific reason to use their DAF.
Chelsea spoke directly to why these goals matter together:
“There’s so much out there in terms of the media landscape and what donors are seeing through their email and social posts and all of that, that in order for any one organization to break through, they need partners and influencers and advocates to really step up. It’s really this amazing time for us all to better explain the benefits of a donor-advised fund and also the purpose and the stories behind them, and what that giving unlocks for an individual donor.”
Revamped website and giving page
The DAF Day website has been completely rebuilt for 2026, with new video content and easier paths to participate. The donor-facing giving page now features nonprofit logos and direct links to each participating organization’s preferred DAF giving page.
Visit dafday.com and app.dafday.com.
Social media
DAF Day has expanded across three social channels in 2026. Follow along, tag us in what you’re working on, and share our updates with your network.
- DAF Day on LinkedIn
- DAF Day on Instagram
- Chariot on YouTube (home of the DAF Day promo video and additional content)
Overhauled marketing toolkit
The DAF Day marketing toolkit has been completely rebranded and expanded for 2026, with templates that are easier to customize with your own logo and imagery.
Shayla, who used the toolkit extensively in years one and two, talked through how it shows up inside an organization:
“I leveraged it both in terms of some of the copy that was in there and the statistics to include about why it’s important for folks to move this money out of their donor-advised fund to nonprofits doing work on the ground. That was a big way that I utilized that. It was key for me creating my quiz and having the data to back up what I was talking about. The other way that I used the toolkit was that I shared it with our graphic design team. We have a very specific brand, so I wasn’t able to take the graphics exactly as they were, but I was able to show this is what I’m looking for, this is what I would like, now make it The Public.”
New webinar schedule
DAF Day III includes a more targeted set of webinars running from June through October. Each session is built around a specific audience or topic and produces a takeaway asset. Register at givechariot.com/events.
What it means to participate
Participating in DAF Day does not require a big team, a custom landing page, or a complicated campaign. Many of the strongest results from year one and year two came from organizations that started with a single email and built from there.
“Just start with something. It doesn’t have to be a lot if you’re feeling overwhelmed. Put one email on the calendar right now. Look at your email schedule and put one on there. If you can, put two. And then add on. The next thing we did at The Public in year two was two emails, a mailing, and a custom webpage. Think about ways you can add on.”
Why your organization should join
DAF Day works because it’s collective. Any one organization’s DAF messaging is more powerful when it’s running alongside thousands of others on the same day, with a shared narrative and shared resources. The amplification effect is what unlocks the donors who were never going to act based on a single email from a single nonprofit.
“I think there are so many more people, because of DAF Day, talking about their experience with a DAF and how meaningful it is to their giving. That’s helping us all. The more people talk about their giving, in any way, whether it’s just to the charity they love, the better. It’s one of these financial things that is hard for people to talk about, but talking about giving really shouldn’t be that hard. It’s so personal, so important to our lives. If we can do that more as a collective industry, that’s really important. So it’s been fun to see the progression in the past couple years.”
Your initial checklist (recap)
We’re four months away from DAF Day III. Here’s where to start:
1. Get on the DAF Day Giving Page
Claim your Chariot account, then add your preferred DAF giving page URL in your account settings.
2. Share your excitement
Share the DAF Day III promo post on LinkedIn with a sentence about what you’re most excited about.
3. Sign up for all the updates
LinkedIn · Instagram · YouTube · Chariot newsletter
4. Download your toolkit
5. Register for training webinars
See the full DAF Day III webinar series.
Questions, ideas, or want to talk through your activation? Reach the DAF Day team at dafday@givechariot.com or follow along on LinkedIn.
