Continue your charitable legacy with a succession plan
What is a succession plan?
With a donor-advised fund (DAF) account from DAFgiving360™, you can create a custom succession plan that continues to meet your philanthropic goals and supports the causes you care about most for years to come.
By naming successors or charitable beneficiaries to your DAF account, you decide how your charitable assets live on, whether through family members who continue to pass down the tradition of charitable giving or through the organizations you cherish most.
Add successors to your DAF account
You can name and update successors and/or charitable beneficiaries at any time. Simply log into your account, go to the Profile menu, and select Successors & Beneficiaries.
Without a designation, your account will be distributed according to default policies.
Three ways to continue giving through your donor-advised fund (DAF) account
At DAFgiving360, donors may select any one or combination of three options:
Naming family members or other individuals as successors on your account.
Recommend charities as beneficiaries of final grants of your account balance.
Recommend charities for recurring grants over a specific timeframe (DAFgiving360 Legacy Program).
What is the DAFgiving360 Legacy Program?
Under the DAFgiving360 Legacy Program, you can recommend up to 10 charitable organizations as grant recipients, each to receive a percentage of the remaining donor-advised fund account balance periodically. You may enroll in the DAFgiving360 Legacy Program and maintain your eligibility with a minimum balance of $100,000 for a core account or $100,000 for a professionally managed account. The program requires a distribution of at least 5% of your account balance each year for a minimum of five years.
How DAF accounts fit into your estate plan
A succession plan for your DAF account typically is part of an overall estate planning strategy. The plan's primary objective is continuing donations with maximum charitable impact while reducing estate taxes.
Whether you have a will, trust or a complex estate plan, adding a charitable giving strategy is simpler than you might think.
Learn more about charitable estate planning.
How to add a succession plan to your DAF account
Naming or updating individual successors or recommending charitable beneficiaries online is simple. When you log into your account, go to the "Profile" menu in the upper right-hand corner and select the "Successors and Beneficiaries" tab.
Succession plan FAQs
Only account holders may recommend changes to the succession plan. If you are an account holder and have web access, you can update your recommended successors and charitable beneficiaries online by logging into your account, clicking on the Profile icon, and selecting “My Profile”. From there, you will select the “Successors and Beneficiaries” tab, where you can view and change your succession plan.
Enrolling in or updating an account for inclusion in the DAFgiving360 Legacy Program must be done via the Update Succession Plan form. It cannot be completed online.
You may name a total of ten individuals as successors and/or a total of ten charitable organizations as beneficiaries, or any combination totaling ten successors and beneficiaries.
DAFgiving360 recommends you create a succession plan so DAFgiving360 can follow your wishes as the account holder. In the case of an account holder’s passing, DAFgiving360 will follow the account’s succession plan on file at that time. If there is no succession plan on file at the time of an account holder’s passing, the account will be closed and assets will be transferred to eligible charities based on the account granting history, if any, or to DAFgiving360’s Philanthropy Fund.
The DAFgiving360 Philanthropy Fund is DAFgiving360’s giving fund, established to make charitable grants and sponsors account holder and investment advisor education and research. Grants issued from the Philanthropy Fund are approved by the Board of Directors of DAFgiving360. We encourage you to establish your own succession plan by naming individual successors or charitable beneficiaries instead.
Whole or decimal percentages method: In your succession plan, you may allocate to successors (individuals) and/or charitable beneficiaries (organizations). For example, you may leave half of your DAF account assets to your son or daughter to manage and the have the other half granted to the Red Cross. These allocations can be made in whole or decimal percentages, rounded to the hundredth place. Your allocations to successors and charitable beneficiaries must total 100%. You may use this method alone or in combination with the fixed amount method described below.
Even split method: The even split method allows you to distribute allocations evenly between your successors and any charitable beneficiaries you designate. The allocation will appear as a fraction on your DAF account statement. You may use this method alone or in combination with the fixed amount method described below.
Fixed amount method: You may select a fixed dollar amount to be distributed to your successors and/or beneficiaries. Another option is to combine with one of the methods described above. Any successor or charitable beneficiary with a designated fixed amount will be considered first, and the remaining funds will be distributed through the secondary method elected.
Please note: Any time the fixed amount method is selected, you must allocate at least one other successor or charitable beneficiary using a different method (this can be either percentage—whole or decimal—or even split). If the account balance is higher than the fixed amount at the time the succession plan is enacted, the secondary method will be used for distribution of the amount above the fixed amount. If the account balance is lower than the fixed amount at the time the succession plan is enacted, the secondary method will be used for distribution of the entire account balance. For more information about this process, please contact us.
Other account holders automatically succeed to the account after your lifetime. For example, if you and your spouse are both listed as account holders, your spouse remains on the account and becomes the primary account holder beyond your lifetime. Any account users also continue with the same privileges they had originally.
Your succession plan will not be enacted until after all account holders' lifetimes. Account users are removed from the account at that time.
If all of your listed successors are either deceased, unwilling to serve, or ineligible, then your contingent successor(s) may have privileges. Similarly, when your succession plan is enacted, if none of your designated charitable beneficiaries are eligible to receive a grant for any reason, then your contingent charitable beneficiary recommendation(s) will be considered.