Impact Investing using ANY Donor Advised Fund

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A donor advised fund is a great way to organize your philanthropy. But did you know that it can also be used to make impact investments?

Not just the small selection your community foundation or other DAF sponsor suggests, but (just about) ANY impact investment, whether an impact fund or a mission-driven for-profit company?

This is vastly different from what most donor advised funds tell their clients. Their three steps are below, with the GROW step typically investing the money in “Wall Street”, with impact as a secondary goal, if at all, and an expectation that the donated money will eventually all be granted to someday have a positive impact on the world.

Realize Impact proves an alternative use of those funds, investing it with impact, with the results of those investments flowing back into your donor advised fund (or family foundation), to be recycled for impact over and over again.

This service doesn’t replace donor advised funds, but instead works WITH every donor advised fund, whether community foundation, national DAF, or one of many DAFs operated by investment institutions.

The fees to do this are just $500 per investment, with 99% of the results of the investment donated back to your DAF. No annual fee. No maintenance fee. No other fees.

If you need ideas for where to invest, the Realize Impact blog touts our recent investments and The Liist publishes a monthly list of impact funds open for investments.

When you are ready, recommend an investment using the form on this page, and following the three simple steps:

1.

Recommend a grant from your donor-advised fund or foundation to Realize Impact, or make a direct donation, then recommend an investment to Realize Impact.

2.

Realize Impact does the diligence, reviews the terms, and makes the debt, equity or other investment.

3.

We donate 99% of the investment returns to your recommended DAF, foundation or other 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Ideas for Investments

If you don’t know where to invest, browse our blog to see where others have recommended investments or check out The Liist.

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