TRANSCRIPT 🔗
speaker-0: Welcome to Funding Bravely, a podcast about courage and philanthropy. What it looks like, how we find it, and how we grow it in its many forms. I'm your host, Marvin Smith. This episode is part of our Donor Advised Fund miniseries, DAFs at a Crossroads. Moving money at the Stud of Need. Six episodes asking what it will take to move the resources. Are we committed to build faster, more flexibly, and in deeper partnership with the communities most affected by how that capital moves? Or does not move, a shift this field is still learning to make. More than $330 billion is sitting in donor-advised funds right now. The question of this series is whether we have the courage to move it and how. If this season is asking of what donor-advised funds could become, we have to begin with someone who's actually building toward the answer. Not theorizing about it, building it. I'm really excited to welcome Sarah Angelo to funding Bravery. Sarah's the co-founder of Daffodil, a platform building modern infrastructure for philanthropic giving for real-time matching and impact transparency. She moved more than 15 years across tech for good, fundraising leadership, and DAF advisory work to this conversation. What makes Sarah's voice essential is that she's lived on the receiving end of DAF Capital, and she's now using all of it to design what the next generation of DAF infrastructure could be. But such a powerful lens to bring to this miniseries. Taran, welcome. It's so grateful to have you here.
speaker-1: Marvin, thank you so much. When you mentioned you were doing a series all about DAFS and the courage and innovation of what's possible for really deploying this capital, ⁓ I was just thrilled to join you. I think this is such an important topic. Thank you for having me.
speaker-0: Sarah, I know there's a lot of questions I have just around your background, how you got to launching Daffodil. But I wanna just start, you know, there's a lot going on in the world and start with you, ⁓ the human being. What what is keeping you grounded these days or even laughing lately? Yeah.
speaker-1: I love that question. So what's been keeping me grounded is normally I spend a lot of time heads down, kind of hunched over my laptop with bad posture. But this is conference season for me. So I have been out there meeting in rooms with actual human beings in real life, talking about these critical topics and the way philanthropy can rise to meet the moment that we're in and having these real authentic conversations. Sometimes over a, you know, a glass of three or wine, ⁓ can really be very grounding as it just reminds you of the stakes and the urgency of the moment that we're in. And beyond that, it is almost summer. I'm in Denver, Colorado, and it is just a great time of year to be outside and enjoying, ⁓ just enjoying the place where I live. So both those things keeping me grounded right now.
speaker-0: So I wanna just start, you know, the theme of this mini series and really funding bravely was a a podcast is about courage and philanthropy. And often we skip past what courage looks like for us as individuals. Where does it come from? Where are we most challenged and how do we stand in those moments and bring courage ⁓ to to bear to whatever situation we might be in? And I wanna just invite you to share about one of your earliest experiences with courage in your personal life. When do you think it was first cultivated in you and what what shaped it?
speaker-1: Was thinking about your perspective on courage and you know what that means for our sector, I went back to really one of the first and most formative experiences I had in this work. And that was when I worked in Masaka, Uganda for the Foundation for Sustainable Development. I was partnering with a group that was building a microfinance fund for women entrepreneurs. ⁓ they were essentially trying to unlock smaller amounts of capital like. $80, $100 US dollars, and then use those funds for things like building a small catering business or purchasing chickens to sell eggs, things like that. And the mentors that I partnered with there were just ⁓ indefatigable. Like they just did not give up. They were relentless. And that often meant really working very hard day in, day out, ⁓ doing tasks that really hadn't occurred to me as someone who grew up in New York. Like, for example, walking an hour to go to a meeting with someone who might underwrite part of the fund in the the hot sun. ⁓ so the courage to just keep working extremely hard and not giving up, even in pretty tough conditions for where we were, ⁓ was very grounding and set a pretty inspiring example very early in my career.
speaker-0: Yeah, thank you. It's ⁓ I think so important to reflect on those early experiences we have in our lives, you know, throughout our childhood, young adulthood, and even in the workforce, like where we've been pushed, ⁓ and and tested to to stand up for things that are important to us. And it sounds like some of your story was just mirroring what you've seen in in some environments that have been really different. ⁓ than than those that you grew up in and and finding ways to tap into your own your own cards. I really appreciate you sharing that.
speaker-1: Thank you.
speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ so Sarah, I wanna just start, we'll come back to questions all throughout that connect to courage. really intruded by your background professionally. So you've worked as a fundraiser, you've advised hundreds of nonprofits, and now you're hard at work at building Gaffadil. Could you walk me through that arc and what did you on the receiving end of philanthropy teach you about staffs and DAF infrastructure.
speaker-1: Wow, great question. It's a long and winding arc, ⁓ for sure. But the the first element here that leads into DAFs and all things DAF infrastructure was probably one of my earlier roles. I was working in a large arts organization in New York. And we would regularly get checks that
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would come from a community foundation. And I would notice that they would have all this language about, you know, what I now know as a DAF. And this was about twenty years ago. And I would ask people in my office, like, hey, like, what does this mean? Like this check is from this foundation, but it's not really from this foundation, but it's from this person that's a donor. Like, what what the heck do I do with this? And no one really knew. they would just kind of tell me, like, yeah, just put it in the system, like, don't worry about it. And I was lucky enough to have a mentor at one of those roles who gave me a lot of time for professional development and learning more about philanthropy. And during one of the quieter times at that organization, I just dove into deep research and like obsessive learning about donor advised funds, their history, their structures, the origins of what we now know as DAFs. And I realized, ⁓ my goodness, any of these donors who are supporting us through the these staffs, they've already put aside, you know, they've already put aside funds. They've already decided they want to be charitable. This money already exists and it's on us to be the stewards and advocates to help them make the decisions to move or commit those dollars to our organization. ⁓ it was a pretty exciting realization. And this was ⁓ when was this? I don't know, around like ⁓ eight, ⁓ nine when
speaker-0: The almost part all this conversation has has popped up on DAFs in such a huge role in recent years.
speaker-1: And back then, I mean, we were we were kind of emerging from the Great Recession and nonprofits were really trying to figure out where the heck can we find some dollars these days. And DAVs were kind of an interesting thing to talk about. The awareness and the knowledge just wasn't really present then. And the idea of using technology to support work, using technology to bring in philanthropy was like totally in another galaxy. I mean, we often forget that as late as the pandemic, like as late as 2020, some of the biggest foundations in the country were still requiring paper applications that you like printed and mailed, which is just wild to consider or explain to someone who does not work ⁓ in our universe. So the arc of my career really ran from a variety of development roles. ⁓ I was chief development officer at an organization in San Francisco when I was frustrated by spending all of my professional time ⁓ working for one organization with the resources and capacity to have a fantastic fundraising team. And then I was volunteering and mentoring and partnering with so many great organizations in my free time that were absolute. experts in their mission area and doing phenomenal work, but they just didn't really know a lot about fundraising. They certainly didn't about donorist funds. And they ⁓ really just needed some help in figuring out how to become visible, how to steward ⁓ supporters, and really how to go from just doing the great work to having the resources to do the better and more effectively. So in 2020 is when I kind of made that leap from working one to one myself full time at one organization to working for a tech company. And I joined a ⁓ software company that was very much in startup stage. ⁓ that's actually where I met my two co-founders at Daffodil. They were both on the founding executive team of that company. And we were really motivated to solve the issues that grantmakers see when they fund nonprofits, meaning how do they ⁓ access capacity building at scale? How do they ⁓ make access to learning and resources and expertise equitable across ⁓ the full nonprofit landscape? So in that role, I learned a lot about foundations and grantmakers and ⁓ sort of the larger corporate players in philanthropy. And we were able to explore and test a lot about how to help organizations get access to resources that they need. And a lot of great experiences there. We grew that company significantly, worked with some tremendous partners across the space. ⁓ and then about a year and a half, two years ago at this point, like towards the end of 2024, my co-founders and I. We're really motivated to step away and launch something different, something that focused on moving dollars with transparency and motivating donors, nonprofits, and all the players in this space to commit to a different way to move money that aligns everyone's incentives in the right spot. So nonprofits share their impact, are connected to the visible aspects of the work that they're doing. Donors and supporters get seamless access to that information with no additional reporting burden for nonprofits. And it's just better, smarter infrastructure for giving, especially donor advised funds. So the arc of all of this is a big time DAF nerd ⁓ for, I don't know, long time coming up on 20 years.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's that's a daff OG ⁓ if I've seen one. I mean, that's a lot of fascinating experience ⁓ bring into this work and seeing it from different lenses, you know, from the d the roles that you've played as a a fundraiser and working in the software world and the private sector and becoming an entrepreneur. ⁓ I wanna go back, Sarah, for a moment to your time working as a a fundraiser. You know, a lot of this conversation around How we move money to move faster and in different ways and align incentives, leaves the voice of the fundraiser out. That could be a whole other series or episode, which I'm excited to work toward in the future. But just maybe a a question for you now around what did it look like to bring some some courage of a fundraiser ⁓ into this work when you saw some of the the gaps in the the system in which you were working with? Like Yeah.
speaker-1: Love that question. And the reason why I love that question is to be a good fundraiser, you need an element of fearlessness to your work and your rapport and the way that you're inviting supporters into your work. And by that fearlessness, I
mean you can't be afraid of no. You're gonna get a lot of no's when you are out there soliciting support for a nonprofit, for a project, for an idea. There are going to be a lot of times where someone says to you, great idea, super cool, not right now. Or that just doesn't align with my giving right now. Or I'm already committed for the year. Any host of reasons why a supporter, whether it's an institutional funder or an individual, is just going to give you a thanks from new thanks. And that fearlessness is accepting that that's totally fine. So many no's in fundraising. become a pipeline to a yes or a pipeline for partnerships or growth or longer term behaviors. So what I've seen a lot of people who are newer to fundraising and newer to the space, ⁓ and this is a lesson that I think is super applicable as well to anyone ⁓ in entrepreneurship or doing something else, ⁓ knows happen and you can't dwell on it. ⁓ you really can't beat yourself up or obsess about the fact that what you were describing just wasn't a fit for someone right now. ⁓ and a fearless fundraiser, a fundraiser who has the courage and what they're asking and what the mission is and what that work is, ⁓ they get that. And they can sit down and have a conversation and with total conviction, they can say, Marvin, what we're doing is really cool, is a great use of your support. We could use someone like you. Won't you be part of what we're doing? Would you consider making a gift of whatever?
speaker-0: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. That's I think speaks to the agency and the power that can be cultivated within a fundraiser. You know, that makes us show up differently at the table when working with owners in a way that's really critical.
speaker-1: I taught a workshop on nos a year ago. And I didn't mean to. Like my intent when I put this workshop together was more about like practical role playing as a frontline fundraiser. But I realized with the conversation with the the students in the class, they were all fundraisers that spent all their time practicing asks and practicing for yeses. And they didn't spend any time rehearsing what they did. for a no or a not right now or, you know, any other response. And we were able to use this time for this workshop instead to really prep for ways that we can receive that graciously and move forward and consider it part of the stewardship and and relationship aspect of working with the steward.
speaker-0: Yeah, that sounds like a wonderful resource. Well, before we shift a bit more into your your work at Daffado, where we are in the sector right now, you mentioned earlier, you know, are we ending incentives across a number of groups that you're working with, from advisors to donors themselves to the nonprofits that might be receiving some resources from donors. That sound that could sound like a tall order for a lot of people, aligning incentives across a lot of those groups. Talk about a you know, sticky point there that you've encountered if you could think of one and any lesson takeaway that you've learned from that. It seems like ⁓ you know, almost idealistic on in on one sense and in another sense maybe more powerful, like really critical, essential.
speaker-1: Yeah, it's for sure saying the quiet part out loud. That's definitely true. so when we talk about DAF specifically, ⁓ you know, there are over fifteen hundred DAF sponsors in the US alone. And most of those DAF sponsors ⁓ are of course public charities themselves. They are of course nonprofits. That's the essence of what a DAF sponsor is. ⁓ but their revenue model is typically based on fees. Whether that is ⁓ fees they earn on the assets under management. ⁓ that's the predominant one. ⁓ and that's really true for the vast, vast majority of those that are that are doing this work in this space. And that's the conventional model. It makes a lot of sense in many, many regards. ⁓ what we think is interesting at Daffodil is to experiment with what it looks like to put nonprofits, account holders, and donor advised funds themselves all on the same page, where everyone is motivated to move dollars out of accounts and into the hands of organizations doing great work. So what that means is you are optimizing for generosity. And what you're focused on is moving those dollars ⁓ as quickly as as makes sense, as quickly as, you know, compliance and visibility and motivations all allow. ⁓ and then putting everyone on the same team and giving us all the same goal with the goal is unlocking dollars for generosity and moving money into the hands of people who are doing critical, critical work. And that urgency is a big part of what keeps us up at night and what keeps us motivated ⁓ at Daffodil. ⁓ philanthropy, Marvin, it's it's not known for embracing newness. There are deeply established systems, really long standing habits, a lot of caution around change. And what makes it hard is that there is this crucial need for better infrastructure, better data and Like more transparent impact feels really urgent, but our sector doesn't move at the same pace as these problems demand. And I think this is just abundantly true when you look around the crises in the nonprofit sector, right? I think something like 70% of nonprofits ended last year with ⁓ like diminished revenues. Households are giving less. There's way more pressure on major donors and those who are ⁓ you know, the smaller donor pools to give more. Government contracts are, you know, obliterated. ⁓ there's just so much pressure to find better ways to fund essential and great work. And it's urgent. The problems that nonprofits are solving are extremely critical. And the old ways of funding and finding and supporting them, ⁓ they're just yesterday's solution for a different era's problems.
speaker-0: Can you think of any example of being in a challenging position and working with those different stakeholders? You talk about assets under management. You talk about donors.
There's, you know, we know 120 trillion some odd dollars transitioning to a next generation of donors in the next 20 years, some different values at play, nonprofits. There's gotta be some challenging circumstances that you've worked within ⁓ when bringing those those groups together. Any that you can point to or themes there that you can speak to or courage is you found is really necessary.
speaker-1: Yeah, I love that question. So you mentioned the great wealth transfer. And what's really interesting about when you think about the great wealth transfer is this is the trillions and trillions of dollars that's expected to move ⁓ when the current generation passes away. So these are dollars that are gonna flow to spouses, to family members, to nonprofit beneficiaries. There's $18 trillion that's expected to move to nonprofits as a result of this great wealth transfer. ⁓ there's a lot of capital at play here. And one of the tensions is that the way we talk about next gen, ⁓ you know, it can be a little unspecific. So next gen is often used to mean anything from You know, people currently in college to Gen X. ⁓ Gen X? They're turning sixty, Marvin. Like Gen X is getting
speaker-0: Forget the no Sarah. I was called out on that and citing a stat of all these assets transitioning from the DD Boomer generation to millennials and Gen Z and I was called out out of session saying, Hey, well what about Gen X? I said I said all right, that was not in the specific stack, but ⁓ part of this. ⁓
speaker-1: Respect for Gen X. So the reason why this is relevant here, why we need to have that courage when we're talking about the Great Wealth Transfer, the systems and infrastructure that we use when we talk about philanthropy, it's just not even vaguely relevant, even for Gen X, which they've been brought up on connectivity and technology and real-time information for like 40 years now. They have totally different expectations than their parents did. And then the generations behind Gen X, you know, the millennials, the Gen Z, the Gen Alphas, like they don't want a transaction out of giving. They're not interested in being treated like an ATM or just writing a checkout once a year to the same organizations that their parents and grandparents supported. They are they are really motivated. by more than transactions. They're motivated by riskier things, new projects. They're less motivated by logos and Hallmark brands of charities. They're more willing to fund in their backyard, fund grassroots projects. And these are people who have been deeply embedded in technology, connectivity, and a more global way of life for for decades and decades. And we need to catch up to them.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Very well put. Thank you. ⁓ let's focus a bit specifically on what better DAFs actually look like. So what if we got DAFs right? ⁓ really right. Like what would the experience be like, do you think, for a donor putting one and a nonprofit on the receiving end, if you think about
maybe, you know, some of the contributions to be made by these next gen donors who've had These kinds of experiences that she just spoke just spoke.
speaker-1: Think that is a great perspective to think about, Marvin. And what I think it comes back to is designing for generosity within these staffs. So a donor advised fund can lower the barrier to generosity. ⁓ what I mean by that is it turns giving from like a once a year financial decision or something that you just do occasionally into an ongoing practice. And this is the part that I think our field kind of underestimates and where we have a lot of potential. So most conversations that are just about DAFs focus on like taxes and asset growth and payout rates. And that's important, but it's kind of missing the point. And the point is more about that human aspect and that generosity. So DAFs can make generosity easier to start and easier to repeat, ⁓ easier to build into someone's life. ⁓ and the reason why is a DAF really separates the moment. Of giving with the moment of setting money aside, like making the commitment to give. ⁓ it separates like the pressure of deciding exactly where you want to donate to, and that alone is is really powerful. So a DAF can normalize giving before someone feels major donor wealthy, because you've got this container now for the dollars that you want to support giving that matters. And then you have that DAF, great, it can make giving more habitual. Because you've got this account ready to go. You've got this capital set aside. And the question isn't like, ⁓ can I afford to make this donation? It's where can this money do the most good? How can I put this to work for the causes I care about? ⁓ DAFs can support learning. They can ⁓ be designed to help you research and find great causes, compare organizations, you can involve family members, a great way to involve kids. Extended family. And then like build your confidence when you're making these larger commitments because you've done that learning and you've done that research all within your death. So this is a topic that I absolutely love because the account itself can be a place for visibility and engagement. ⁓ next, Jen, we talked about how they're about much more than transactions. What they're expecting from an account. is the type of experience and engagement that they see in every other aspect of their life, financial or otherwise. I like to use a Gordash example. You know, Marvin, you mentioned your the Gen X side of things. So I'm assuming you've placed a grocery order or two.
speaker-0: Yeah, I'm I'm a Xennial, I think they're called an older land of millennials, but you know, ⁓ empathy for the the Gen X experience, but we're most we're not using it as a example nonetheless. Awesome.
speaker-1: Well, when you use DoorDash or anything like that, you know, you place a grocery order and it shows you all the steps of the process that ultimately deliver groceries to your home. And then you've got continuous
follow-up. How was the delivery? How are your items? How would you rate this? It's a week later, do you need more bananas? You know, like there's a lot that happens once you've made what's ultimately a transaction. You ordered groceries. So ⁓ you know, all analogies break at some point. I'm sure some people are gonna hate that I'm comparing philanthropic giving and and charitable giving to ordering groceries, but basically there's a lot of thinking, especially around DAFs, that charitable giving is just a one off transaction. ⁓ but that's that's really not a great way to think about DAFs and what's possible because it doesn't need to be a place of transaction. It can be a place that you know, learns from that DoorDash example where it's engagement, it's ⁓ visibility, it's saying, hey, you've got this much in your account. Do you want to make another contribution? You gave to this organization. Have you ever considered this organization? This is what charity A has been up to the last three months. ⁓ how cool. Do you want to re-ab your support? There's so much about DAFs that we could design to unlock more impact and make them a place of engagement and visibility, not a place of transaction.
speaker-0: Yeah, so let's let's pause here for a bit. So I wanna come back to the point you just made around not seeing this as a DAFs as an opportunity for just a a one-off transactional kind of engagement. ⁓ I read some of the most recent reporting I read on DAFs are that the median account balance across all DAF holders is just above ninety thousand dollars. Now, those folks, ⁓ independent of where their wealth is is sitting, you know, and assets under management in other places, that amount by itself, many of them see as not an opportunity for transformational giving. ⁓ that's an assumption because it's really, you know, ⁓ depends on who you're thinking about and what your goals are. How do you think about that kind of donor though, who might have a a much smaller amount ⁓ of money sitting within a DAFT and compared to a high net worth individual who's moving hundreds of thousands or or millions of dollars.
speaker-1: That is a really astute point. There's a perception out there, ⁓ it's kind of an unfair ⁓ perception, that daff holders are all billionaires that are just like hoarding their wealth, that they don't want to move anything out. But what we actually know from the research and like many years of this research is that, like you said, average balances are, you know, less than a hundred thousand, usually around ninety. ⁓ sometimes a lot less, depending on the platform, depending on a couple of other factors. ⁓ most pay out at you know, much higher rates. I think 20 to 25 is often cited. And what I find pretty exciting about thinking about this type of donor and thinking about the typical account that a deaf holder is working with is kind of the signal that it shows. Someone has $90,000 in a DAF, like that's showing you they are philanthropically inclined. That is showing you that they have quite a great deal of capacity to give. And ⁓ my my fundraiser hat is coming on here, Marvin. But that shows a great potential for a plan giving ask. ⁓ and the ways that you can bring this donor into a more comprehensive stewardship plan. ⁓ but what it does signal against is that. DAF holders are a rich tapestry themselves. Like some, of course, do have seven figure accounts, but most don't. Most are motivated major donor territory, but ⁓ there's no like secret community of multi-billionaires all sitting on their on their DAFs. The typical DAF holder ⁓ is closer to the profile that you mentioned.
speaker-0: Yeah, so I wanna just come back to this this point that you were just speaking of for a moment around i incentives earlier. And so How do we align incentives for those managing the assets ⁓ of a a a DAF holder when account balances are under 100K? Where's the incentive for a finance professional to engage in a non-transactional way with a donor who might have eighty, ninety thousand in an account?
speaker-1: This is where we have seen incredible research coming from our peers in the space. ⁓ people that I call out here, DAF Research Collaborative, the American College of Financial Services, Daylight has done terrific work, Fidelity Charitable, Bank of America. I mean, I could keep going on citing great research that has come out here, but financial advisors who talk to their clients about giving, who talk to their clients about philanthropy, have happier. Stickier, longer lasting relationships with their clients, and ultimately wind up managing ⁓ greater amounts of assets. So the amount in the DAF and like monetizing the DAF, that is a rounding error compared to the potential of what using generosity as part of their client stewardship plan further unlocks. One ⁓ one great study showed that. Financial advisors who regularly speak to their clients about generosity tend to retain those families when there are generational shifts, when a spouse passes away, when there's a divorce, ⁓ when capital flows to a next generation. Because there's that rapport, there's that better relationship and values that's been established, those advisors are more likely to stay working with them.
speaker-0: Yeah, sorry. I don't I don't know if if a fidelity would treat it this way or see it, but that's a call to action. I think really helpful and useful for folks in your institutions and other larger institutions like like Vanguard of you know what's possible when you look at you know the opportunities to unlock generosity of a donor to create those aligned incentives that you spoke about earlier.
speaker-1: Yeah, but I I do have to give them their flowers. One of these great reports was ⁓ published by Fidelity.
speaker-0: There's a lot out there right now on Fidelity talking about assets under management. ⁓ yeah. How do you in your roles how do you think about the fee structures that are involved in managing those assets
on one hand where there's some you know, there's some financial payoff there that might disincentivize a donor from a deaf the next day? How do you hold those those two truths?
speaker-1: Yeah. So we work with DAF sponsors ⁓ at Daff Adol. You know, we are one ourselves to move and promote giving, ⁓ but we also leverage our technology to support existing DAFs that that are out there and DAF sponsors who are motivated to put that impact visibility and experiment with these ⁓ ways of turning the account into a place of engagement and into a place of ⁓ impact. So There's a lot of interesting stuff going out there in the broader space. But how I think about it, one thing that I come back to often here is that philanthropic technology is kind of like an afterthought. So much of what we see through DAFs and like the platforms that are around for giving and fundraising and philanthropy, they ⁓ just haven't been designed well. They haven't received the attention of what would it look like if we built something that's really trying to solve for these critical issues. So that's that's what I come back to when we're sitting with this inherent tension of how can we do more to help dollars get out the door to great organizations? How can we exist and thrive within the structure that's already out there in philanthropy, whether we're talking about DAFs or foundations or anything else out there? And how can we do more and innovate and design for generosity with what exists there? So part of it is acknowledging the tension of like this is what everyone is used to and change is slow and hard in philanthropy. And then the other side of that is you have to push for the urgency of the moment and push for the potential of here's what we're seeing, here's what we think is gonna work, and here's why. And then you invite people to be part of it with you. You know, no one likes to be lectured to, no one likes to be told they are, you know, wrong. You really have to create a door for people to step through.
speaker-0: Yeah. That's w what is you're you're speaking a lot ⁓ again around this theme of like I think courage, not just standing up and stooking to things that might need to be said, but courage to think differently. ⁓ where does that shape up? Is you're advising so many so many donors out there and nonprofits, advisors. What does courage look like for you and your work right now and what makes it difficult?
speaker-1: One thing that comes to mind right away is that dafts spark some pretty extreme reactions. ⁓ you know, there are a lot of folks who are just like daffs are like the great evil of society. ⁓ and you know, big feelings that that happen. ⁓ and I I get where they're coming from. Like things are really strained right now. Nonprofits are really grappling for resources and There's this image that there's billions and billions of dollars out there that are being prohibited from reaching organizations that could do so much with them. So, kind of this courage ⁓
that I'm trying to use as a model for myself and where I'm trying to find courage is really acknowledging the different perspectives around how we need to innovate and shift things within philanthropy. ⁓ and recognizing that. we have these extreme responses because these are difficult times and showing up with the empathy and understanding of ⁓ you know what we're trying to do is really important. And Marvin, I also think that courage means like accepting responsibility. Make the case, listen carefully, and then keep moving forward, even when this work requires more patience than I want. So if we believe that this moment calls for a more informed, transparent, and accessible philanthropic ecosystem, ⁓ then it's on us, like especially at Daffodil, to help people see that urgency and feel included in something better. ⁓ so it's hard, but it's also like the essential work right now. And accepting the responsibility for those conversations and ⁓ pushing forward, even in a in a space that is not known for love and change, ⁓ it definitely is where ⁓ where I'm thinking about courage and and showing up with that right now.
speaker-0: Yeah, Sarah, thank you. That's I think a beautiful way to close our conversation. I'm I'm I'm hearing from you an invitation to work toward the future you want to see. ⁓ no matter where you are, where where you enter this, you know, daft's from working with them. ⁓ some of the points that's that have sat with me is of working partnering with donors closely, you know, to to help them think about where their money can do most good. ⁓ we've highlighted I think some misconceptions out there about DAFs and generosity and how much money we we think are just sitting in those accounts. by citing a payout rate that's often referenced between twenty to twenty five percent. Yeah, I think the number looked around eight percent for foundations ⁓ on average. And so that would mean the payout rate is a lot higher. ⁓ so there's a lot for us to understand differently, yeah.
speaker-1: And foundations get to include their operating costs or the majority of their operating costs in that eight percent. So ⁓ there's a lot to unpack there as well. But what we agree with here is there's almost two trillion dollars in philanthropic capital in the US. And we can we can really do more and do better with ⁓ with those resources that are ⁓ stewarded for communities and those that are doing the essential work.
speaker-0: Yeah. Well as as we think about these next gen donors who will be inheriting assets as a part of this great wealth transfer, it seems like a tremendous opportunity to get to know them and their ambitions and find alignment in some of those shared values to move these resources, as you put, more transparently, more powerfully in an infrastructure that's reimagined in the image that think would be better serving the generosity that's ⁓ you know, out there. that folks are are embracing and we'd like to embrace even more of and very grateful for this conversation, Sarah. ⁓ I think we could continue talking on and on. So I hope this is not our last one. wanna just invite you to share like where folks can find you.
speaker-1: So keep the conversation going. Join us. Join us in what we're doing at Daffodil. ⁓ You can join our network and join what we're building for this impact visibility and experience at getdaffodil.com. There's no cost to get started. It's completely free for nonprofits. Just ⁓ you know, give us a shout. Come on over and explore what we're building, and we'd love to hear from you. ⁓ so you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm always open ⁓ for messages at my email. ⁓ we'll drop that in here, but Sarah at get daffodil dot com. And yeah, we really are excited to keep building and really nurturing this community of people who are motivated by impact and ⁓ you know, better innovation.
speaker-0: Well thank you, Sarah. That wraps this episode of Daft at a crossroads moving money at the speed of news. Thank you and best of wishers on the work you're doing.
speaker-1: Thanks for having me.