This short video quickly walks through how the donor-advised fund works.
Donors under the age of 40 with a commitment for the principles of liberty, free enterprise, and limited government.
An account can be opened with $1,000. The real value from the fund starts when the account has reached $5,000, when you can begin recommending grants. There is no minimum balance after that. All contributions to your account are fully tax-deductible. DonorsTrust charges 0.75% annually for our work in handling the due diligence, check-writing, and account management (see full fee schedule at the bottom of the page here).
Think of your donor-advised fund as a charitable savings account. You contribute in, receive your tax deduction, and then have funds ready and available when you come across a non-profit organizations you’d like to support. It’s a bit like a private foundation, but much cheaper, and it’s simpler than donating to individual organizations as DonorsTrust does all the work of making the grant. You just tell us where it should go.
We sure can. Many folks come in with a specific set of groups to support. Others know they care about certain issues but lack a clear sense of the “charity landscape.” DonorsTrust can help you work through your intent and help pair your interests with appropriate organizations. (We’ve made grants to over 3,000 groups so we have a good sense of what might be available to you.)
DonorsTrust was founded to support donors who care about the principles of liberty, namely limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise. Your grants can support most any 501(c)(3) non-profit (including religious institutions) so long as it doesn’t work to expand government and takes a minimal amount of government money. You also can’t use a donor-advised fund account to give to anything where you’d get something in return, whether that’s a seat at a dinner, membership dues that feature benefits, or just a commemorative tote bag. See detailed grant guidelines here.
The Novus Society is a project of DonorsTrust, the community foundation for liberty. DonorsTrust brings over 25 years of experience and more than $2 billion in grant making to bear in helping you navigate how you will make your charitable impact. DonorsTrust serves as more than just a platform for the mechanics of a donor-advised fund. The clients and friends of DonorsTrust will serve as a network of mentors to Society members, and the list of more than 3,000 pre-vetted organizations that have received grants from DonorsTrust gives Society members a starting point for any avenue of giving they choose.