Introducing Daffy: It’s Time to Give

Here at XYZ, we focus on fintech, enterprise, and tech-forgotten spaces. Our more moonshot bets, those that fall within the intersection of our fintech and tech-forgotten mandate, have often been the most rewarding whether it be insurance or the public sector. Most recently, we’ve bet on something so obvious and yet so tech-forgotten — charitable giving, the timeless idea that individuals should help those less fortunate than themselves. 

When Adam Nash, former CEO of Wealthfront and long time friend of Ross, told us he wanted to reinvent donor-advised funds (DAFs) alongside his co-founder, Alejandro Crosa, we knew there was no better duo to tackle this problem given their deep product and fintech experience. The team has quietly spent the last year in stealth building Daffy, the Donor-Advised Fund for You™, a platform designed to help make giving a habit from the ground up. Daffy is a community organized around a simple idea – everyone should put something aside regularly for those less fortunate than themselves. This commitment is what they now call, “The Daffy Pledge.” 

For Adam and Alejandro, this is a deeply personal mission. Over the past decade, we’ve made so much progress designing platforms and services to help people shop and save. Why can’t we use the same technology and features to help people give? Coming out of the worst pandemic in over a century, now is the time for a product that gives people the ability to do something to help others. 

The first release of Daffy focuses on making giving a habit through the automation and personalization of charitable contributions. With Daffy, members choose how much money they want to set aside for charity, watch their contributions grow tax-free in one of nine modern investment portfolios, and can donate to more than 1.5 million charities from the app. Contributions to a member’s Daffy fund can be made with a linked bank account, a credit or debit card through Apple Pay™, publicly traded stocks, and crypto. Plus, Daffy stores all donations in one place, so members never lose a donation receipt again. Daffy is a registered 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, so all contributions qualify as tax-deductible in the year they are made. Whether making a donation to a national non-profit or at a local fundraiser, it’s just a click away. 

Daffy is powered by public and private data from multiple providers so members will have more context for their giving. For example, when you tell Daffy where you live, the app provides the median household income and the median amount of charitable giving in your area. They leave it to the member to decide how much to give, but hope that by providing data, more people will feel more comfortable making a choice.

So it is with immense excitement that we announce that the team has come out of stealth and launched the initial version of Daffy — and we were there to see it all from the very beginning. There are so many innovative ways Adam, Alejandro and the team at Daffy can help people be more generous, more often. Go join them at daffy.org.