DAF Day lands on Thursday, October 8. It is the third annual giving day for donor-advised funds, and if the first two years are a guide, several thousand nonprofits will spend it asking DAF holders to move money that is already set aside for charity. Getting ready takes an afternoon, not a campaign.
The Giving Day Is Nine Days Out, and It Is Growing Fast
DAF Day is a coordinated national giving day held on the second Thursday of October. The pitch is simple. Donor-advised fund holders have already made the charitable contribution and taken the deduction. The money just has to be granted out. DAF Day gives them a date to do it, the way GivingTuesday gives everyone a date to give.
One thing to know up front: the day is organized by Chariot, the for-profit company behind DAFpay, a checkout option that lets donors start a DAF grant from a donation form. The event doubles as marketing for that product. That is worth keeping in mind when you read the promotional numbers, and it changes nothing about whether you should participate. The day is open to any nonprofit, and none of the preparation below requires Chariot's product or anyone else's.
The growth is real either way. The inaugural DAF Day in 2024 drew about 1,000 participating nonprofits. By Chariot's own count, the 2025 edition drew 4,400 nonprofits and 30 participating DAF sponsors, and moved more than $2 million in grants the company could directly observe across 20 providers. Treat that dollar figure as a floor, and as a self-reported one: many DAF grants arrive by check weeks later and are never traceable to a single campaign day.
The Money Behind It Is Real
The case for spending an afternoon on this is the size of the pool. Donor-advised funds granted $64.6 billion to charities in fiscal 2024, according to the DAF Research Collaborative's Annual DAF Report, and DAF assets reached $327.9 billion. The aggregate payout rate, grants as a share of assets, ran 25.2%. For scale: DAFs face no payout requirement at all, while private foundations must distribute a minimum of roughly 5% of their investment assets each year, a floor many exceed. We looked at what the DAF boom means for fundraisers in more detail in our September analysis of Candid's grants data.
DAF donors are also unusually good donors. Chariot's 2026 DAF Fundraising Report, drawn from $26.1 billion in giving data across 54 organizations, found median DAF revenue grew 75% from 2021 to 2025 while median non-DAF revenue grew 9%, and that DAF donor retention runs about 13 percentage points above non-DAF retention. Chariot sells DAF infrastructure, so read its numbers as a vendor's, but the direction matches what the independent DAF Research Collaborative data shows: this slice of giving is growing while much of the rest is flat.
An Afternoon of Prep Covers It
Here is the small-shop version, in order.
Make the DAF path findable. Add a short "Give from your donor-advised fund" block to your donation page with your legal name, EIN, and mailing address. Sponsors need those three things to route a grant, and a donor who has to email you for your EIN often does not.
Find the DAF donors already in your file. DAF grants arrive as checks or transfers from sponsors such as Fidelity Charitable, DAFgiving360 (formerly Schwab Charitable), Vanguard Charitable, or your community foundation, usually with the donor named in the memo. Code those records, and you have your DAF Day audience. If you are not sure how these grants work mechanically, start with our explainer on DAF grants.
Send one email. A short note to your coded DAF donors and board a few days out: if you give through a donor-advised fund, Thursday, October 8 is the day to recommend a grant. One reminder the morning of. That is the whole campaign.
Optionally, get listed. Appearing in the DAF Day directory requires claiming a Chariot account, which is also how the company grows its network. Weigh it like any vendor signup. Useful, not required.
Know the Two Rules Before Thursday Arrives
One eligibility note first: DAF grants can only go to 501(c)(3) public charities, so if you are a 501(c)(4) or a private foundation, this day is not for you. Beyond that, two mechanics trip up first-timers. First, do not send a DAF donor a tax receipt. The donor took the deduction when they funded the account, and the sponsor documented it. Send a warm thank-you that acknowledges the grant, credits the sponsoring organization as the source, and names no deductible amount. Second, a DAF grant cannot buy the donor anything. Federal excise-tax rules tax the donor, and fund managers who knowingly sign off, when a grant produces a more than incidental benefit for the donor, an advisor, or their family, so no gala tickets, no auction items, and no memberships that come with perks. Pledges are their own minefield, handled under IRS interim guidance, so talk to the sponsor before connecting a DAF grant to one. Outcomes here turn on your specific facts, and this is not tax advice for your situation, but "thank them, do not sell them anything" covers the day itself. If DAF money becomes a meaningful line for you, it is also worth vetting the sponsors the grants come from.
The takeaway
DAF Day is young and industry-made, and it is still tiny next to GivingTuesday. It is also nine days away, and it points at a pool of giving that keeps growing while much of the rest of the fundraising picture is flat. An EIN block on your donation page, a coded donor list, and one email put you in the game, and all three keep working through year-end appeal season long after October 8.