#123 | Should fundraising professionals be afraid of donor-advised funds?

I was excited to talk with Stephen Kump, co-founder and CEO of Charityvest. Stephen is a passionate leader who is all about strengthening the non-profit sector by making donor advised funds an increasingly user friendly resource for those who want to be deliberate and intentional about their giving. As Stephen shared with me, Charityvest has taken a very unique approach to the DAF, branded themselves very differently, and eliminated much of the friction that often prevents donors from using this tool. This has resulted in a platform that is especially appealing and accessible to the average mid-range donor that many organizations are paying a lot of attention to lately.

With all the controversy that has been simmering in recent years, I was admittedly surprised that DAFs had not come up in our more than 120 episodes. As I shared with Stephen, I don’t believe DAF are the scary monster that we have made them out to be. In fact, I believe that fundraising professionals need to become increasingly familiar with and comfortable navigating conversations about them with their donors.

Stephen is a pretty sharp guy. Prior to Charityvest, Stephen worked for over ten years as a strategy consultant to nonprofit organizations, philanthropists, corporate leaders, and private equity investors, most recently with Bain & Company. He has also led military organizations and multi-national operations as a former combat arms officer in the US Army. He holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and bachelor’s degrees in both Economics and Management from Georgia Tech.

As always, we are grateful to OneCause for being our sponsor.