It may sound counterintuitive, but the team over at Charityvest is seeing some positive momentum in the charitable giving space even as economic uncertainty looms.
“I’m hearing across the charitable sector there is some downward movement towards giving overall, but as I talk to folks in the donor advised fund (DAF) space who provide giving accounts, the overall the sentiment right now is giving is like steady or even up,” says Charityvest’s co-founder and CEO Stephen Kump. “In down times, we see the magic of donor advised funds.”
Kump said that the grant-making side of Charityvest – where account holders move money out as make donations – is up.
“We see that a lot of people are use giving accounts as a kind of charitable savings account. They have this rainy day mentality. They are saying that the economy isn’t great, but I have built up this charitable balance and I can use it when the economy is down in order to support the charities that I want to. And that [act of giving] means even more relatively to these charities than it otherwise [at other times.”
NEW FEATURES, NEW WAYS OF GIVING
The Atlanta-based Charityvest is backed by Y Combinator and most recently raised a $2.2 million seed round in April to spur growth.
The team was co-founded by Kump and his fellow Georgia Tech alums Ashby Foltz and Jon Koon.
Kump said the whole goal of Charityvest and its DAF product roadmap is about “helping people be more purposeful with their giving.”
Part of that, Krump said, is about adding intentionality around end-of-life giving.
The team recently launched a beneficiary feature to create an easier way to ensure funds go directly to a cause a person is passionate about.
“Most people don’t think about charitable giving at the end of their life. Most of the time it is a tack-on question even in estate planning. And the reason for that is that it is complicated,” explained Kump. “What we’re trying to do is marry two things together – purposefulness and intentionality around giving with ease and convenience. The beneficiary feature enables you to simply take whatever is in your fund and allocate it intentionally at the end of life. There’s no will, no legal paperwork since [Charityvest is] the legal holder of the charitable assets.”
End-of-life giving isn’t the most cheery of topics, but Kump sees it as an important part of the entire lifecycle of giving.
“The first thing that we encourage people to do is start giving something,” Kump added. “ We’ve tried to make that so easy…you get the tax benefit today. And if you’re not excited at this very moment about a particular charitable opportunity, you can go on a journey and figure that out. That’s the beauty of our charitable giving accounts. It’s just sort of like fitness. Join the gym. You don’t have to go today or even tomorrow. But go ahead and join the gym and make a plan to go and think about how it might best fit into your life.”
