What is a Donor-Advised Fund?| Intelligent Investing

Reading Time: 2 minutes On today’s Intelligent Money Minute, we’ll interview John Putnam on what is a donor-advised fund. John begins by giving us a simple definition. A donor-advised fund is a low-cost flexible account for charitable giving. Due to some of the similarities, you can think of a donor-advised fund as a “charitable checking account.” Rather than giving directly or creating a private foundation, a donor can choose to open a donor-advised fund instead. The 501(c)(3) public charity is the holder of the account instead of a bank. Unlike a checking account, however, the donor makes “irrevocable gifts” than cannot be retracted. John recommends a donor-advised fund for a donor giving to a greater number of charities. A note-worthy advantage of a donor-advised fund is the ability of the donor to remain anonymous. A donor-advised fund is a wonderful opportunity for the donor seeking to keep things simple. At Intelligent Investing, we can help you know whether a donor advised fund makes sense, and can help you with creating one. If you are interested in having a 15 minute complimentary call to discuss this or other financial topics, click here.

More From John

We’ll be interviewing John Putnam on future podcasts on creative ways to give charitably, how to use a donor-advised fund, and charitable giving with Young Children, so be sure to subscribe.

John Putnam Bio

John is an author, speaker, Kingdom entrepreneur and non-profit leader of NCF Carolinas. He grew up on a cattle farm in Cherryville, NC (that’s ‘Churvul’ for you locals ☺), and attended college at N.C. State. Above all, John is married to his wife Anne and the father of three children. John led a thriving financial services practice for over 20 years. Following his passion for stewardship, he launched a Charlotte, NC affiliate of National Christian Foundation. On January 1, 2018, the office merged with NCF Raleigh to become NCF Carolinas. To His glory alone, God has used the NCF Carolinas team to help mobilize hundreds of millions of dollars for Kingdom impact. John’s professional background is as a former Certified Financial Planner, a trained Life Planner through The Paterson Center and a graduate of Charlotte Leadership Forum. He has worked alongside the Halftime organization, a two-time graduate of The Masters Program and a past Strategic Coach participant. He enjoys sharing through media, workshops and his website at JohnPutnam.com.