A Call for Shared Standards

I run a donor-advised fund (DAF) platform. In eight years leading Assets Under Movement (AUM+), we’ve granted more than $1.5 billion to nonprofits, and our DAF holders consistently pay out more than 70 percent of their assets each year. 

I’ll say it plainly: the deplatforming of organizations with no transparent process in response to allegations is a problem our field needs to solve together, not one provider at a time. Within days of a federal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), several of the largest DAF sponsors froze grants to the organization. A handful of others followed. Many donors found out only when a sponsor denied their grant recommendation.

Whatever you think of SPLC or the case against it, those decisions set a precedent: an indictment means a cutoff. This is all too familiar.  A DAF provider makes a decision, outrage within the philanthropic community ensues, and nothing changes.  Unless we do the hard work together and create shared standards and a process for accountability, the pattern will repeat itself.

When a few sponsors set the rules for everyone

DAF sponsors have real legal and fiduciary obligations, and there will inevitably be tough calls and times when pausing grants to an organization is the right call. But a decision this consequential should come with a clear standard, notice to the donors it affects, and a way for the impacted organization to make its case. Instead, those sponsors faced intense pressure with no shared standards or information to draw on, and each fell back on its own risk calculus.

The bigger problem is scale. When a handful of sponsors that hold a large share of DAF assets adopt a rule, even an unspoken one, it becomes the benchmark for the whole field.  Our field has no shared standards or common process for notifying donors or hearing from affected organizations, and no independent source of information to rely on under pressure. This challenge becomes more significant as DAFs make up a  larger share of American philanthropy and more nonprofits find themselves the target of legal and political fights. Without shared infrastructure, the biggest players will keep setting the standard for everyone, one crisis at a time. 

AUM+ was born out of the labor movement, and it taught us something every DAF sponsor can use: we solve the hardest problems together, not one institution at a time. That’s why I believe the answer isn’t for each provider to get these calls right on its own. It’s for all of us to build something together that none of us could build alone.

The questions every provider should be able to answer

Building shared infrastructure starts with agreeing on the basics. Our field has spent decades innovating on how donors give, how sponsors invest assets, and how grants move. That innovation should extend to accountability. At a minimum, every DAF provider should be able to explain, clearly and publicly:

• What standards guide a decision to restrict grants to an organization
• Who makes that decision, and whether donors are told
• How an affected organization can make its case or appeal
• How we tell legitimate risk management apart from outside pressure

These should not be radical questions. They should be the baseline for an industry that increasingly sits between donors and the organizations doing the work. And no single provider should have to answer these questions by itself.

Lessons we can learn from the apparel industry

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, students on campuses across the country, including me, organized against sweatshop labor in the production of collegiate apparel. We held protests and sit-ins, but the most lasting thing we won wasn’t a headline. It was an institution. The Workers Rights Consortium brought universities together to build independent infrastructure that could monitor supply chains, investigate concerns, and respond to workers who came forward. No single university could have built that on its own. Together, they raised the bar for everyone.

The lesson isn’t that philanthropy should copy the apparel industry. It’s that when individual institutions face a systemic problem, the answer is often shared infrastructure rather than another individual policy. For DAFs, that could mean common standards for when to restrict grants, a clear process for notifying donors and hearing from affected organizations, and an independent source of information providers can trust under pressure. Getting the design right will take real work, input from providers and nonprofits alike, and care not to create a new gatekeeper in place of the old problem.

But the payoff is worth it. The whole field, not just its largest players, would shape how these moments are handled. And when the next hard case comes, none of us would be improvising alone.

An invitation

The DAF field has proven it can innovate on how money moves. On this DAF Day, I’m asking my fellow DAF providers to take up this work with us. If you believe our field can do better, reach out. We want to hear from you.

– Anna Fink, CEO