Donor-Advised Fund Grants Make a Difference at SAR
Many of our donors support for SAR from the Donor-Advised Funds (DAF) set up through a community foundation, financial institution, or other sponsoring organization.
Donors appreciate the tax benefits that comes from establishing a Donor-Advised Fund and find it to be a simple and flexible way to organize their charitable giving to support important work.
If you have a Donor-Advised Fund, or are considering setting one up, the School for Advanced Research (SAR) would welcome gifts from your DAF to support our mission. Your DAF grant to SAR can qualify you for recognition in any of our giving circles, including the President’s Circle and the El Delirio Legacy Circle.
Helpful Information for Giving to SAR From Your DAF
Each sponsoring organization has its own method for receiving your recommendation for grants. Here are three easy steps:
- Contact your sponsoring organization. Please contact your DAF sponsoring organization to recommend a grant to the School for Advanced Research. Most sponsoring organizations have either an on-line portal or a form that can be sent by fax, email or postal mail. If your DAF account is with Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, or BNY Mellon, you can recommend a grant using the easy online tool here:
- Provide legal identification for SAR. As is required, the School for Advanced Research is designated by the Internal Revenue Service as a (501)(c)(3) charity. You will need to provide our legal name, mailing address (which is the post office box and not the street address), and our tax identification number:
School for Advanced Research
P.O. Box 2188, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504-2188
Federal Tax I.D. Number: 85-0125045
- Notify us that a grant is on the way. If we know the amount of your recommended grant, the name of your sponsoring organization, and the name of your DAF, we can be on the lookout for the grant. We will be able to let you know when it arrives and extend an enthusiastic thank you for your wisely planned gift. The best way to reach us is at development@sarsf.org or 505-954-7231. Please ask for Lindsay Archuleta, Director of Advancement Operations, or Helen Brooks, Director of Leadership Giving.
Donor-Advised Fund Mechanics
Donor-Advised Funds have been around since the 1930’s and many of the earliest sponsors were community foundations. DAFs have seen a recent surge in popularity and now are also available through the charitable arms of financial institutions and through other charitable organizations.
To get started, you will choose one of these sponsoring organizations and then donate cash, stocks, or other assets to fund the DAF. Contributions to your DAF are tax-deductible in the year the assets are transferred. The sponsoring organization provides you with a gift-acknowledgement for income tax purposes.
Another tax-smart feature of a DAF is that you can bypass capital gains tax when you use appreciated property like securities or real estate to fund your DAF. The DAF can sell the assets without triggering capital gains tax, thus allowing the full value of the assets to go to work for charitable purposes.
You can contribute assets to the DAF and receive tax benefits when it is financially advantageous for you, yet recommend grants to your chosen charities later, even in another year.
Once the you transfer assets to the DAF, you also transfer control of the assets to the sponsoring organization. However, you, your spouse, or other representative may be designated as a donor-advisor and can recommend grants from the DAF to your preferred charities, recommending the amount and timing of gifts. Your DAF-sponsoring organization then distributes the grant to the charity.
Grant Eligibility
The Internal Revenue Service sets ground rules about DAF grant distributions and the sponsoring organization for your DAF may also provide guidelines to comply with the IRS. Some general guidelines include that distributions must be made to qualified charities for charitable purposes. The grant can’t provide more than an incidental personal benefit to the individual. While you can recommend grants over multi-year periods and can share your intent to do so with charities, that can’t be in the form of a binding financial obligation.
Legacy Planning with Your DAF
Here’s another feature of DAF accounts, which fits nicely into legacy planning. Funds may grow over time through investment earnings and regular replenishment as part of your annual financial planning. You may specify the final disposition of any remaining funds in the DAF, naming one or more charities to receive them, just like a bequest in a will. The funds are not subject to estate tax, since they are not the donor’s property.
By working with your DAF sponsoring organization to document your legacy plans, you can continue to fulfill your giving goals and support charitable organizations, like the School for Advanced, research beyond your lifetime.
It is important for you to know that If you have not formalized your DAF succession plans with the sponsoring organization, upon your death your account assets will automatically transfer to a general account managed by the sponsoring organization. Because legal control of the funds is transferred to the DAF sponsoring organization when you fund the DAF, your will or trust has no impact on your DAF or any funds that remain in it.
SAR appreciates the foresight and philanthropic spirit of all our legacy donors and we invite you to let us know if you include SAR in your DAF legacy plans. We would like to thank you for your generosity and recognize you as a member of SAR’s El Delirio Legacy Circle.
For more information, please contact us at development@sarsf.org or 505-954-7231. Please ask for Lindsay Archuleta, Director of Advancement Operations, or Helen Brooks, Director of Leadership Giving.