A good name for a donor advised fund

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RetiredArtist
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A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by RetiredArtist »

When I make a donation, some charities hound me with requests for further donations, or invite me to fundraising events. I wish they wouldn't. I am going to establish a donor advised fund. I suppose it is best to choose a name other than my own? How do people with DAFs choose names?
Thanks!
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ResearchMed
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by ResearchMed »

RetiredArtist wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 6:53 pm When I make a donation, some charities hound me with requests for further donations, or invite me to fundraising events. I wish they wouldn't. I am going to establish a donor advised fund. I suppose it is best to choose a name other than my own? How do people with DAFs choose names?
Thanks!
How about "Retired Artist Charitable Account"? (Or "Retired Artist Donations" or such?)
:happy

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pdxgreen
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by pdxgreen »

Fidelity Charitable allows you to make anonymous grants to charities, so it shouldn't matter what your fund name is if you choose that option as the charities would never see it. I assume other DAF providers offer the same option.
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TierArtz
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by TierArtz »

I combined state abbreviation, sir name, and year. I use VG and forget what naming recommendation they had, if any. I have not noticed "hounding" for additional grants. VG allows for anonymous grants, so tracking it back to you can be avoided if desired. I have not used that option.
littlebird
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by littlebird »

My late spouse and I chose a name with sentimental meaning to us. And now that he’s gone, it feels like a memorial fund in his memory.
laohan
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by laohan »

I use a donor advised fund, but I typically give anonymously or in honor and memory of people and places worth honoring and remembering. I use my name sparingly, and only when I think it will make a positive impact, or there is a specific reason I want to be on the donor list.
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Watty
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by Watty »

I once worked for a big tech company where future projects with code names were frequently leaked and reported on the the press.

It never happened but it was an on going joke that any future code names would be be so vulgar that no one would publish them.

You could name it something like the "Don't call me, I'll call you" fund. :D
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MN-Investor
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by MN-Investor »

There are times, like donating to your church, where you want your name to be known. Our DAF is named "Husband's Last Name / Wife's Last Name Family Trust" (such as "Jones / Smith-Jones Family Trust").

I love the Fidelity Donor Fund because it does allow me to give anonymously and that accounts for most of my donations.
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ResearchMed
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by ResearchMed »

MN-Investor wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 7:34 pm There are times, like donating to your church, where you want your name to be known. Our DAF is named "Husband's Last Name / Wife's Last Name Family Trust" (such as "Jones / Smith-Jones Family Trust").

I love the Fidelity Donor Fund because it does allow me to give anonymously and that accounts for most of my donations.
Curious: Does one actually need to create a legal Trust to name something the "XYZ Trust"?

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Point
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by Point »

“Curious: Does one actually need to create a legal Trust to name something the "XYZ Trust”

I doubt it. The Clinton Foundation is not a foundation. Why should the name of something ending in trust have to be a trust?
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ResearchMed
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by ResearchMed »

Point wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 8:42 pm “Curious: Does one actually need to create a legal Trust to name something the "XYZ Trust”

I doubt it. The Clinton Foundation is not a foundation. Why should the name of something ending in trust have to be a trust?
i'm not sure.
I guess one thing I was thinking about was when we helped MIL set up her new accounts when we moved her near us a few years ago, and we set up her Trust accounts, the financial institutions needed to see copies of the Trust docs. I'm not sure what would have happened if we had winked, and said, "Oh, she just likes the name" :D

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MN-Investor
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by MN-Investor »

We used the word Trust in our DAF because we have a revocable trust and our taxable account at Fidelity is also in the trust name.
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Stinky
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by Stinky »

pdxgreen wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 6:59 pm Fidelity Charitable allows you to make anonymous grants to charities, so it shouldn't matter what your fund name is if you choose that option as the charities would never see it. I assume other DAF providers offer the same option.
This is exactly the way we do it with Fidelity. You can donate with name and address, with name only, or anonymously. So having our name on the fund doesn’t give us any problems.
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FIREchief
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by FIREchief »

Ours is simply the FIREchief family charitable fund. In addition to DW; DS and DD have full access/authority. They are welcome to use it as a means to make charitable donations as they wish. This is something I rarely see brought up in these threads. Fido has a $5000 minimum, but once established the fund can be used by multiple generations and anyone else who is brought into the fold. I really can't envision a "hey Dad, I put $100 in the DAF and you granted it to the sick puppy charity while I was planning to donate it to the sick kitty cat charity."
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IowaFarmBoy
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by IowaFarmBoy »

The Human Fund! :P
bikesandbeers
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by bikesandbeers »

We are just [surname] family giving fund at Fidelity, but we make liberal use of the option to give anonymously to organizations that I suspect will hound me.

On the flip side, for some organizations that I am very active in and want to make sure they associate the donation to me actually let them know that they should be expecting a check from Fidelity soon. Otherwise I have found that common [surname] family funds checks just get lost in the shuffle, even when they have my address on them.

As noted you can have other friends or families make contributions through you fund. This makes sense as the fee is higher if you have a smaller balance (less than 12k). I have been encouraging my parents to contribute, and use the anonymous option. After a lifetime of giving, they get probably 20 pieces of mail ever month asking for contributions. Some of these are organizations they have supported for a lifetime, but many are from a single donation to a cancer foundation, heart/lung foundation etc, in honor of a friend who died.
pyld76
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by pyld76 »

IowaFarmBoy wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 5:01 am The Human Fund! :P
Fidelity would not let us do that. I assume it’s either been tried so much they shut the door or it is copyrighted.
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by jebmke »

RetiredArtist wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 6:53 pm When I make a donation, some charities hound me with requests for further donations, or invite me to fundraising events. I wish they wouldn't. I am going to establish a donor advised fund. I suppose it is best to choose a name other than my own? How do people with DAFs choose names?
Thanks!
Just make the grant anonymously. We do that quite a bit. It saves having to deal with the various invites to events, being solicited by the whisper potential donor list etc.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
afan
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by afan »

This behavior seems to be taught day one in development officer school. Apparently it works often enough to compensate for the donors who stop giving because they are fed up with being harrassed.

I was told that many development officers are rated on how much money they personally bring in. Donors like us, who contribute every year but are not "attached" to a development person, do not count. Hence the emphasis on personal contact.

We had one charity to which we made annual gifts and each time asked them to stop calling us asking for money. They ignored those requests, so we sent them a letter telling them that we were ending our donations because we were tired of all the calls. We said we might consider resuming after several years of radio silence from them. We told them that if resumed and started being called again, then they would never get another penny from us.

That actually worked. They stopped. After a few years of peace and quiet, we restarted our annual gifts and have not heard a peep from them. This all played out before we had a DAF.
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FIREchief
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by FIREchief »

pyld76 wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 8:58 am
IowaFarmBoy wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 5:01 am The Human Fund! :P
Fidelity would not let us do that. I assume it’s either been tried so much they shut the door or it is copyrighted.
That's funny. I actually had that thought cross my mind when we set up our Fido DAF (not a serious thought, just a goof)
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Jack FFR1846
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by Jack FFR1846 »

Name the fund after someone you really, really don't like. Maybe include the town they live in to help out the hounders in setting up they annoyance lists.

Example

Joe Bothersome South Metropolis, Ohio

Then Joe gets bothered.
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aristotelian
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by aristotelian »

There are some creative ones in the 2019 Bogleheads Hedge Fund Contest: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... WvdiwyyIs/
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FelixTheCat
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by FelixTheCat »

I spoke with a Fidelity Charitable rep about the same thing. Her favorite DAF name is "Better You Than The IRS".
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GerryL
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by GerryL »

I named my DAF Ape4Apes Charitable Fund. I thought I could hear the Fidelity rep's eyebrows rise as I named my fund and wondered if they might find a reason to reject it. But they didn't.

The bulk of my giving is to primate sanctuaries, so it is appropriate and easy to remember over time. (And I've used Ape4Apes for naming other entities.) I often wonder how charities like the local food bank or the financial literacy project I support react when they get a check from the fund. No matter. It is still appropriate since it means one (human) ape giving for the benefit of other (non-human and human) apes. And it is meaningful to me.

I vote for choosing something that is meaningful to you as long as you are careful not to pick a name that does not age well.
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PrettyCoolWorkshop
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by PrettyCoolWorkshop »

I sat here thinking about what to say, and "The Altruistish Fund" made me chuckle.
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pyld76
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Re: A good name for a donor advised fund

Post by pyld76 »

FelixTheCat wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 2:49 pm I spoke with a Fidelity Charitable rep about the same thing. Her favorite DAF name is "Better You Than The IRS".
An organization I give to who publishes programs for events with donor names in it struggled with whether to include "taxation is theft" on their acknowledgement pages. I told the development manager that when I'm invariably invited to another rubber chicken dinner, I want to sit next to that guy.
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