What the DAF data means for you
We read every grant Canada's DAF sponsors reported to the CRA. Here are eight findings from that data, each with what it means if you run a charity, advise clients or run a DAF program. Pick your role to see only what applies to you.
Canada's DAF sponsors grant about $2.2 billion a year, across 53,070 grants. In their most recent CRA filings, 278 of those grants were $1 million or more. They're half a percent of all grants, and they carried 41% of the money, as much as the smallest 51,852 grants put together.
DAF giving in Canada runs as two economies at once. The wide one reaches about 1 in 4 registered charities, and the typical grant to a charity under $1 million in revenue is about $3,000. The deep one is a few hundred large grants, and 86% of those dollars go to charities with more than $5 million in revenue. Charities over $25 million are 4% of DAF recipients and receive 39% of the dollars.
Both kinds of giving matter: large grants build hospitals and fund research, and small steady ones keep local programs running. Each economy works differently, though, and the right approach depends on which one you're in.
If you run a charity
DAFs matter, but it's important to put their gift sizes in context. DAF money is statistically more likely to arrive as several $5,000 grants than as one $5 million grant.
That should also change the picture of a DAF donor. Half of all DAF grants in Canada are $5,000 or less, and only half a percent are $1 million or more. Most DAF grants look like gifts from your committed mid-level supporters, not from the rare major donor writing a single enormous cheque.
- Build for volume at the mid-level. Make DAF giving easy for donors in the $1,000 to $25,000 range: list your legal name, charity registration number and mailing address on your donate page, and mention DAF giving in your mid-level and monthly donor appeals, not only in major gift conversations.
- Steward DAF grants like the donor relationships they are. A $5,000 grant that comes back every year is worth more over time than one large gift that doesn't. Ask the sponsor to pass along your thanks, and invite the donor into your regular stewardship.
If you advise clients
It's easy to assume a client's DAF grants need to be large to matter. The typical DAF grant in Canada is $5,000, and grants of $1 million or more are half a percent of all grants.
- A client doesn't need a seven-figure plan to give well through a DAF. Regular grants of a few thousand dollars, made with intention, are what most DAF giving looks like, and they add up for the charities that receive them.
- Make each grant an informed one. WellCheck produces a due diligence report on any Canadian charity, covering governance, financials and impact, in minutes, whether the grant is $5,000 or $5 million.
If you run a DAF program
Most of what your donors want to do is move smaller amounts, often and quickly. Your systems either make that easy or slow it down.
- Make small, frequent grants simple. If the typical grant is a few thousand dollars, a donor shouldn't face the same paperwork and wait time as a $1 million grant. A digital grant request and fast payment out keep donors giving through your program.
- Get money to charities at the speed of need. WellPay confirms a charity's bank account belongs to it before you send, and moves grants bank to bank by EFT, so a grant recommended this week reaches the charity this week rather than by cheque weeks later.
See it on the dashboard →Source: WellFunded analysis of CRA T3010 and T1236 filings from 157 DAF sponsors, using each sponsor's most recent gift year.In their most recent CRA filings, Canada's DAF sponsors kept 68% of their grant dollars in the province where the sponsor is based. The pattern holds across the country. Sponsors based in Quebec keep about 80% at home, and in Alberta it's 83%. Ontario is lower at 64%, as many national sponsors are based in Toronto and fund charities everywhere.
The money that does travel tends to go one direction. About 21% of the dollars granted by sponsors in the West go to charities in Ontario, where many national charities and hospital foundations are based.
DAF giving is a national tool used mostly for local giving. A donor can recommend a grant to any registered charity in Canada, and most of them choose charities close to home.
If you run a charity
Your best DAF prospects are probably in your own province. The sponsors most likely to fund you are the ones whose donors already live in your community. Staying in the province doesn't mean staying local in the work, either. Many charities based in your province run programs across Canada or around the world, and DAF donors fund them from home.
- Know every DAF sponsor in your province, not only the community foundation. Start with your local community foundation, whose staff often help donors find local charities. Then look at the other sponsors based in your province, including the DAF programs run by wealth management firms, banks and faith-based foundations. The sponsor lookup on our dashboard shows which of them already fund charities like yours.
- Be easy to find when a donor or advisor goes looking. Funders managing over $2.3B in DAF assets search WellFunded for charities, and a free profile puts you in front of all of them. Update it once and it's current for every sponsor and advisor.
If you advise clients
The data suggests many clients want to give close to home, which makes intuitive sense. People give where they live, to causes they can see.
- Start with a values conversation. Before a client picks charities, it helps to know what they care about and why: the causes, the places and the kind of change they want to see. WellAdvised walks you and your client through that conversation and turns it into a Philanthropic Profile, so their giving, local or not, follows what matters to them.
- Help clients find charities they haven't met. WellFunded lets you search 86,000+ Canadian charities in plain language, so you can match a client's intent to good organizations anywhere in the country, not only the ones they already know.
If you run a DAF program
Your donors mostly give near home, and local knowledge is part of what they value in your program. Some of their grants will still cross provincial lines, and those should be just as easy.
- Show fund holders what their local giving is doing. Donors who give close to home want to see the difference in their own community. Share short updates on what local grants achieved, invite fund holders to see the work in person, and pass along what charities report back. A fund holder who sees local results is more likely to keep granting.
- Make out-of-province grants as simple as local ones. A grant to a charity three provinces away shouldn't take longer or need more paperwork. WellPay confirms any charity's bank account belongs to it before you send, so you can pay a charity you've never worked with by EFT with the same confidence as one down the street.
See it on the dashboard →Source: WellFunded analysis of CRA T3010 and T1236 filings from 157 DAF sponsors, using each sponsor's most recent gift year.Canada's DAF sponsors make about 53,000 grants a year. In their most recent CRA filings, half of all the money moved in just 567 of them, about 1% of grants. The ten largest grants alone came to $258 million, 12% of everything DAFs gave.
The receiving side is just as concentrated. Of the roughly 21,400 charities that got a DAF grant, 100 of them received 38% of the dollars. The 278 grants of $1 million or more came from 51 sponsors and went to 227 charities, mostly in education, health care and religion.
A grant isn't a donor per se, but a $1 million grant likely comes from one fund and one family's decision. That means a few hundred decisions a year shape a large share of what DAFs do in Canada. When those families change course, the totals move with them.
If you run a charity
If you're one of the charities receiving large DAF grants, a small number of relationships may carry a large share of your DAF revenue. If you're not, the next large grant is most likely to come from a donor who already knows you.
- Know how concentrated your own DAF revenue is. List your DAF grants for the last three years by fund and donor. If two or three families account for most of it, plan for what happens when one of them changes direction, and put the same care into those relationships as your largest individual donors.
- Be ready when a larger gift is being considered. Donors and advisors weighing a significant grant will look you up. Funders managing over $2.3B in DAF assets search WellFunded for charities, and a free, current profile means what they find is accurate.
If you advise clients
Few clients will make a seven-figure grant, but when one does, that single decision can matter more to a charity than years of smaller gifts.
- Plan large grants as carefully as the rest of the estate. Talk through timing, multi-year schedules and what the client wants the gift to achieve, so a large grant supports the charity's plans rather than surprising them.
- Check the charity before the money moves. WellCheck produces a due diligence report on any Canadian charity, covering governance, financials and impact, in minutes. At $1 million or more, that's a step worth taking every time.
If you run a DAF program
A handful of your fund holders likely drive a large share of your granting, and the sector relies on DAF money more each year. As DAF data becomes more transparent, more will be expected of the programs that hold these funds, from charities, from the public and from the donors themselves.
- Be ready to show where your grants go. As filings get easier to read and DAF giving keeps growing, people will look more closely at how DAF money moves. Programs that can show clearly where their grants go, and how quickly, will be in a stronger position than those that can't.
- Give the donors behind your largest grants better tools. WellFunded's donor dashboards give fund holders real-time fund management, grant requests and impact tracking, so the families making your largest grants can see what their giving is doing.
See it on the dashboard →Source: WellFunded analysis of CRA T3010 and T1236 filings from 157 DAF sponsors, using each sponsor's most recent gift year.In their most recent CRA filings, Canada's DAF sponsors made grants to about 21,400 charities. More than half of those charities, 56%, received grants from a single sponsor that year. For charities under $1 million in revenue it's 67%, and the typical charity with one sponsor received about $4,000 in DAF grants in total.
At the other end, 772 charities heard from ten or more sponsors, and together they received 41% of all DAF dollars. They're mostly large, well-known organizations that donors at many different sponsors already know.
For most charities, DAF money arrives through one door. That makes each relationship more important than it looks, and it means a second or third sponsor relationship is often within reach.
If you run a charity
It's tempting to treat DAFs as a numbers game: reach as many sponsors as possible and hope a few grants come through. The data points the other way. Most charities hear from one sponsor, and a relationship you already have is usually worth more than ten you don't. Our recommendation is to go deep before you go wide.
- Get to know the sponsor you already hear from. Learn who handles grants there, how they pass along thanks and donor details, and whether they run their own grant programs too. A sponsor that knows your work is more likely to mention you when a fund holder asks who's doing good work. A free WellFunded profile keeps your work current for that sponsor's staff and for every advisor who looks you up.
- Deepen the relationship with the donor behind the grant. Record the fund name, ask the sponsor to pass along your thanks, and invite the donor into the stewardship you'd give any donor at that level. Donors who know you well often bring their family, friends and advisor with them, and that's usually how a second sponsor relationship begins.
If you advise clients
A client's DAF grant may be the only DAF money a small charity receives all year, while the best-known charities hear from dozens of sponsors.
- Help clients see what their grant means to the charity. At a charity with one DAF relationship, a client's grant is a significant share of that income. A multi-year commitment or a short note with the grant can matter more to that charity than a larger one-time gift elsewhere.
- Look past the familiar names. The 772 charities funded by ten or more sponsors receive 41% of DAF dollars. WellFunded lets you search 86,000+ Canadian charities in plain language, so you can match a client's intent to strong organizations they haven't heard of.
If you run a DAF program
For many of the charities your donors fund, your grant is their only DAF connection. How that grant arrives shapes how the charity sees DAF giving as a whole.
- Make every grant easy to recognize and acknowledge. Send a clear grant notice with your program's name, the fund name and, where the donor agrees, a way to reach them. A charity that can thank the right person is far more likely to build a lasting relationship with your donor.
- Make first-time grants as easy as repeat ones. Most charities you pay won't have worked with you before. With WellPay, charities upload their banking once and every grantor using WellFunded benefits, and their bank account is confirmed before you send.
See it on the dashboard →Source: WellFunded analysis of CRA T3010 and T1236 filings from 157 DAF sponsors, using each sponsor's most recent gift year.In their most recent CRA filings, Canada's DAF sponsors reported $3.36 billion donated into DAF accounts and $1.94 billion granted out, on $17.9 billion in DAF assets. The money held in Canadian DAFs grew by about $1.4 billion in a single year. Most of that growth sits with a few large sponsors: the ten fastest-growing account for 86% of it.
That gap isn't surprising, and it isn't necessarily a problem. Donors tend to give to a DAF in large, occasional amounts, often when they sell a business, receive an inheritance or donate shares, and then recommend grants over several years. A DAF that's growing will nearly always take in more than it grants out.
It does mean a large and growing pool of money is set aside for charity and waiting for a recommendation. For a sector under pressure, how quickly that money moves matters to everyone.
If you run a charity
Think of DAFs as an ally. As Mike Todd at Transform Philanthropy puts it, giving from a DAF is like spending from a gift card rather than a credit card: the decision to part with the money has already been made, and the donor is only choosing where it goes. Right now, donors are loading more onto that gift card than they're spending. For every dollar granted out of Canadian DAFs, $1.73 went in.
That makes DAF money unusually steady. When a recession tightens a donor's own budget, the money already in their fund doesn't go anywhere. It's still set aside for charity and still waiting for a recommendation, which makes DAF giving some of the most resilient support a charity can build.
- Ask every donor whether they give through a DAF, and write down the answer. Add the question to your giving form, event registration and major gift conversations, and code it in your CRM. Otherwise a grant arrives under a fund name and the person behind it stays invisible to you.
- Make it easy for DAF money to find you. Say "donor-advised funds" on your ways-to-give page, with your CRA registration number, a direct phone number and the name of the person who handles DAF gifts. Funders managing over $2.3B in DAF assets also search WellFunded for charities, and a free profile puts you in front of all of them.
For more, see Seven Ways to Fundraise from a Donor-Advised Fund.
If you advise clients
A DAF is a good place to put a large gift while a client decides where it should go. Without a plan, though, that decision can stretch on for years.
- Agree on a granting plan when the fund is opened. A target, such as granting a set share of the fund each year or the full amount over a set period, keeps the money moving toward the causes your client cares about.
- Turn the plan into a giving strategy. WellAdvised walks you and your client through a values conversation and turns it into a Philanthropic Profile, so the fund has a direction from the start rather than sitting until the next conversation.
If you run a DAF program
Growth is good news for your program, and it also raises expectations. As balances grow and DAF data becomes more transparent, donors, charities and the public will pay closer attention to how quickly money moves out of DAFs.
- Help fund holders keep granting. Regular reminders, giving suggestions tied to a donor's interests and simple grant requests all shorten the time between a gift going in and a grant going out.
- Give fund holders a clear view of their fund. WellFunded's donor dashboards give fund holders real-time fund management, grant requests and impact tracking, so it's easy for them to see what's available and recommend the next grant.
See it on the dashboard →Source: WellFunded analysis of CRA T3010 filings from 157 DAF sponsors, using each sponsor's most recent return. DAF inflows, grants and assets are from T3010 lines 5863, 5864 and 5862.Right now, DAFs are getting a lot of attention, and for good reason, because they're growing in popularity. It's important to keep them in perspective, though, next to their peers in public and private foundations.
By size, DAFs are the smallest of the three. In their most recent CRA filings, Canada's DAF sponsors held $17.9 billion in DAF accounts, compared with $58.5 billion in private foundations and $108.3 billion in other public foundations. By how fast the money moves, DAFs lead. They granted 10.8% of their DAF assets in a year, while private foundations granted 7.5% and other public foundations 5.8%. Private foundations have to grant at least 5% of their investment assets each year under the CRA's disbursement quota, so as a whole, DAFs gave out more than twice the minimum.
The typical sponsor sits lower, at 8.4%, and the range is wide. 41 sponsors granted less than 5% of their DAF assets, but together they hold just 6% of all DAF money. 26 granted 20% or more. Community foundations tend to sit at the lower end, with a median of 4.7%, because many of their advised funds are endowed and are designed to grant a steady annual amount for good. Faith-affiliated and online sponsors tend to sit higher, because their donors use them to pass money through to charities within a year or two.
There's no payout rule for an individual DAF account in Canada. The disbursement quota applies to the sponsor as a whole, and each sponsor sets its own policies for funds that go quiet.
If you run a charity
DAF money is moving. Across the whole system, about one dollar in every nine held in a DAF is granted out each year, and that's money already set aside for charity.
- Know which kind of fund your donor holds. An endowed fund at a community foundation grants a similar amount every year, which makes it a good fit for multi-year support. A flow-through fund at a bank or online sponsor can make a larger grant at once. Asking your donor which they have helps you make the right ask.
- Be easy to find when a donor or advisor goes looking. Funders managing over $2.3B in DAF assets search WellFunded for charities, and a free profile puts you in front of all of them.
If you advise clients
Clients deciding between a private foundation and a DAF often assume a DAF is where money sits. The data says otherwise: most DAF money moves faster than a private foundation is required to.
- Match the vehicle to how the client wants to give. A client who wants a permanent family legacy may be best served by an endowed fund. A client who wants to give actively over the next decade may prefer a flow-through DAF or, at a larger scale, a private foundation they run themselves. The choice depends on the client's intent, not only the tax treatment.
- Start with what the client wants their giving to do. WellAdvised walks you and your client through a values conversation and turns it into a Philanthropic Profile, which makes the choice of vehicle much clearer.
If you run a DAF program
Your payout rate is now public, and it's easy to compare with your peers. As DAF data becomes more transparent, donors, charities and the public will expect programs to explain how their money moves.
- Know your number, and be ready to explain it. If your payout is low because your funds are endowed by design, say so. If funds are sitting idle, a clear policy for inactive funds protects your program and your donors.
- Make granting easy enough that funds don't go quiet. WellFunded's DAF platform gives fund holders a portal for grant requests and impact tracking, and handles administration and verified EFT payments for your team, so the path from a fund to a grant stays short.
See it on the dashboard →Source: WellFunded analysis of CRA T3010 filings from 157 DAF sponsors, using each sponsor's most recent return. Payout is DAF grants out (line 5864) divided by DAF assets (line 5862), for the 121 sponsors with at least $1M in DAF assets that reported DAF grants.Not every dollar a foundation or DAF grants goes straight to a charity's work. In their most recent CRA filings, 895 private foundations granted $440 million to DAF sponsors, and public foundations added another $150 million. Going the other way, DAF sponsors granted $113 million to private foundations and $140 million to other DAF sponsors, about 11% of all DAF grants combined.
There are good reasons for most of this. Families wind down a private foundation and move what's left into a DAF, which is simpler to run. Donors move their fund from one sponsor to another. A DAF grant can help seed a new family foundation. A grant from a private foundation to a DAF also counts toward the foundation's disbursement quota, the 5% it must grant each year, even though that money hasn't yet reached a charity's programs.
Each extra step between donor and charity adds time, and it makes the money harder to follow. As more giving runs through more than one vehicle, being clear about where it ends up matters more.
If you run a charity
Some of the families who used to give through a private foundation now give through a DAF. The vehicle changed, but the people making the decisions often didn't.
- Follow the family, not the vehicle. If a family foundation that supports you winds down or moves its assets into a DAF, the relationship carries on. Ask who's advising the family now and how they want to be recognized, and keep stewarding them the way you always have.
- Be easy to find when a donor or advisor goes looking. Funders managing over $2.3B in DAF assets search WellFunded for charities, and a free profile puts you in front of all of them.
If you advise clients
More of your clients will move money between vehicles over their lifetime: from a private foundation to a DAF, between DAF sponsors, or from a DAF into a family foundation. Each move is a chance to revisit what the giving is for.
- Treat a change of vehicle as a planning moment. When a client closes or simplifies a foundation, talk through the legacy they want, the role of the next generation and how much they want to give now versus later. A grant to a DAF meets the foundation's quota, so be clear with the client that the money still has to reach a charity to do its work.
- Start with what the family wants their giving to do. WellAdvised walks you and your clients through a values conversation and turns it into a Philanthropic Profile, so the family's direction carries across whichever vehicle holds the money.
If you run a DAF program
The data in this post is public, and it's getting easier to read every year. That's good news for programs that serve their fund holders and charities well, because that work is becoming easier to see.
It also raises the bar. Compliance is the starting point, not the goal. The programs that stand out will be the ones that make giving work better for their fund holders and for the charities those fund holders support.
- Make it easy for money to reach operating charities. Fund holders should be able to find good charities, recommend a grant and see it paid quickly. WellPay confirms a charity's bank account belongs to it before you send and moves grants bank to bank by EFT, so money reaches the charity doing the work without delay.
- Make the impact visible, and let charities reach your fund holders on their terms. WellFunded's donor dashboards show fund holders what their grants are doing. Charity profiles give organizations one place to share their work with every sponsor and advisor, so a fund holder can stay connected to the charities they fund.
See it on the dashboard →Source: WellFunded analysis of CRA T3010 and T1236 filings from 157 DAF sponsors and Canada's private and public foundations, using each organization's most recent gift year.In their most recent CRA filings, Canada's DAF sponsors granted $63.9 million to Canadian charities working in international cooperation, 2.9% of all DAF dollars. That's based on Cooperation Canada's ATLAS list of the international cooperation sector, matched to DAF grants by charity registration number. The money reached 208 organizations through 1,584 grants, and the typical grant was $5,000, the same as DAF giving overall.
Interest is broad, but the dollars are concentrated. More than half of DAF sponsors, 81 of 157, made at least one international grant. The ten largest recipients took 56% of the money, led by GlobalMedic, Doctors Without Borders Canada and Samaritan's Purse. Faith-based organizations received about half of the total.
For comparison, international charities received about 4% of online giving through CanadaHelps in 2025. The two sources sort causes differently, so treat that as a rough guide rather than an exact match. Either way, international work is a small share of what DAF donors give, and it fits the wider pattern in this series: most DAF money stays close to home.
If you run a charity
If your work is international, DAF donors are reachable. Most sponsors already make international grants. But you're competing with charities donors can see in their own community.
- Make your Canadian connection clear. DAF donors give mostly close to home, so show what ties your work to Canada: your registration here, your Canadian staff and board, and how donations made here reach the people you serve abroad.
- Be easy to find when a donor or advisor goes looking. Funders managing over $2.3B in DAF assets search WellFunded for charities, and a free profile puts you in front of all of them, with the impact information a donor needs to fund work they can't visit.
If you advise clients
Some clients want their giving to make the biggest possible difference, and international work is one of the least funded areas of DAF giving. With only about 3% of DAF dollars going to it, a client's grant can stand out and matter a great deal to the charity that receives it.
- Ask about global interests early. Clients don't always raise them unprompted, especially if they assume a DAF is meant for local giving. If a client wants to fund work that others overlook, international cooperation is a strong place to start, and a DAF can fund a Canadian charity doing that work abroad.
- Find the Canadian charities doing that work. Cooperation Canada's ATLAS maps about 400 Canadian organizations working internationally, country by country. WellFunded lets you search 86,000+ Canadian charities in plain language, so a client's interest in, say, clean water in East Africa leads to organizations actually working there.
If you run a DAF program
International grants are a small share of your granting, which makes them an opportunity. Donors looking for places where their money will make a real difference can find one here, and your program can help them see it.
- Make international giving easy to find. A short list of well-run Canadian charities working abroad, by region or issue, helps donors act on interests they may not have known their fund could support. Cooperation Canada's ATLAS is a good starting point for building one.
- Check international charities quickly and consistently. WellCheck produces a due diligence report on any Canadian charity, covering governance, financials and impact, with governance checked against CRA director records, so your team can review an unfamiliar international charity in minutes.
See it on the dashboard →Source: WellFunded analysis of CRA T3010 and T1236 filings from 157 DAF sponsors, using each sponsor's most recent gift year, matched to Cooperation Canada's ATLAS organization list. Online comparison from the CanadaHelps Giving Report 2026.
See the data behind every finding
The full dashboard maps $2.2 billion in DAF grants by province, cause and charity size, with a lookup for every DAF sponsor.