October 17, 2025 • 24 mins
Adam Nash is the co-founder & CEO of Daffy.org, a modern, fast-growing platform for charitable giving. Named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2024, Daffy is short for the Donor-Advised Fund for You™. Adam has served as an executive, angel investor, and advisor to some of the most successful technology companies to come out of Silicon Valley.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M and T Bank presents CEOs. You should know Howard
by I heard media. Let's meet Adam Nash.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
He is the co founder and CEO for Daffy, a
platform that allows users to donate charities by creating a
donor advice fund that you can use by app or web.
Before we talk more about Adams an incredible company, I
first asked him to talk a little bit about himself,
where he's from and his origin story.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Well, I actually I grew up in Silicon Valley. Actually,
my parents are doctors, live in the area. I'm the
oldest of four children, and I've lived here most of
my life except for small stints around the country.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
So Adam not setting the bar high parents and doctors
and you're the firstborn. My goodness, pressure was on.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah. Well, you know, it's always a little disappointing did
not get a doctored or a medical degree. But you know,
it turns out I'm the first engineer in the family.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I think you're just fine. I think everybody's really proud.
So listen, we are here to talk about Daffy. And
it's been about a year since you joined us in
this series last time. And I know a lot is changed,
and the world is flu and AI is here and everything.
So we got a lot to talk about the company.
But there's going to be a lot of people that
are listening to this series and a lot of future entrepreneurs.
As you were coming out of school, what did you
(01:09):
want to do well?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You know, my focus in my undergraduate was on computer science.
Actually ended up getting a graduate degree continuing the study
in human computer interaction. I've just always been fascinated with
the way that people interact with technology. Right. Technology is
very rational, it's ones and zeros, yes and no. People
are more complicated. We have emotions, we have feelings, we
(01:32):
have history, we have narrative, and so finding ways for
people to not just interact with technology but get the
most value out of it and feel good about it
was just something I always found fascinating, and so most
of my career has been trying to find those bridges
between what technology can do now and how people can
(01:52):
take the best advantage of it to make their lives
better and solve problems that they have. We're going to.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Get Mission and Vision and all the things and all
the cool products that Daffy offers up and kind of
go over everything and what's happened over the last year
since we last talked to you. But I'm always interested,
and I know our listeners are about how somebody comes
up with an idea that you did for Daffy, and
I just you know, it's so fascinating, and I always
you know when I when I heard about your product
when we met over a year ago, Well, it's just
(02:20):
a fantastic idea, and you always wonder, well, why didn't
anybody think of that and execute it? Well, it takes
a lot to do that, folks, and you're going to
find out about that as Adam talks about the company.
But as you came up as co founder of Daffy
and you saw a hole in the industry about what
you wanted to do. Adam, how did the old origin
come together?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Well, I mean I always got to see a lot
of value and starting first with the customer problem, with
what people really need and want in their lives. And
you know, Daffy was founded in the midst of the pandemic,
so it was obviously home there's a lot of stress
and strain and family, but there was a lot of
focus on community too, and rediscovery of neighbors and neighborhoods
and trying to support each other. And I I really
(03:00):
was looking across at all this great innovation we've had
in the last ten or twenty years in finance, right,
all these great new apps and services to help people
save better, spend better, and best better. And I asked
the question, you know, why why not giving right? Giving
really matters? I mean, I'm the father of four children.
My kids went to this wonderful school where every Friday
(03:22):
they would all the kids would bring in their spare
change and you know, put it a little piggy bank
and then vote every quarter about which local nonprofit to
give it to. I mean, giving is something that's not
just a financial task. It's something that we deeply care about,
we teach our children. And yet where's the great app,
where's the great service that helps us give better? And
so my co founder Al Hutter and I were talking
(03:44):
about this, and we really believe that with where technology
had gotten to financial infrastructure, all these great services, we
could do something for giving that you know, frankly the
market needed and that millions of people wanted. I mean
about sixty million American households charity every year. And so
building an app or a service dedicated to helping people
(04:05):
be more generous just felt like a great way to
spend our next run in terms of building a company.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
All right, Adam, Before we get to exactly what you
do in the great products that you offer through Daffy,
I think mission and vision is always very important. And
when I talk to leaders of companies, they're very specific
and I know you are too when it comes to
mission and vision. So what is that for Daffi.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Dafi's mission is very simple. We exist to help people
be more generous more often. Like our goal is to
basically take this wonderful type of account that's existed in
the United States for decades called the donor Advice Fund,
which is a tax advantaged account for charity, and just
help people do the simple thing, which is, when it's
(04:46):
convenient for them, put some money aside for those less
fortunate than themselves. And actually that's a lot of our vision.
Our vision is a world where everyone puts something aside
proactively for those who are less fortunate than themselves. And
so every we wake up and try and think about how,
with technology, with design, how we can come up with
better ways for people to not just put money aside
(05:08):
for charity, but actually discover the causes and organizations that
they care most about.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
You've touched on this a little bit, Adam, But if
you could give all of our listeners that are being
introduced to DAFI for the first time kind of a
thirty thousand foot view of about exactly what you do,
what would you tell them?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, it's really simple. You know, when most people ask
me about Daffy, what I tell them is is that,
you know, if you're the type of person who gives
money to charity, you should have a separate account for right.
We have separate accounts for a lot of the financial
things in our lives that we care about. We have
separate accounts for retirements. Some of us have separate accounts
for college savings, and most of us give to charity
(05:45):
on a regular basis. We just do it reactively. We
wait until someone asks us to give, and then we
have these two hard problems, right, you know, how much
can we afford to give? And then of course who
do we give the money to? And it just doesn't
need to be that complicated. So when people ask about Daffy,
I say, it's a simple app. You download it, you
put money aside for charity, You get the tax deduction
(06:08):
for that right away, the money's invested tax free, and
then any time you're inspired to give to any of
the one point seven million or more charities across the US,
it's just a few taps on your phone and the
money goes to the cause or organization you care about.
So it's really a wonderful app or service for people
who give regularly and solves a lot of problems for them,
and it's a smart way to do it.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well, listen, I think you've got everybody's attention on how
cool the app and also the web based product is.
With that said, how does daffi work?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Oh, it's really simple. Like I said, the Donor Advice
Fund is not something that we invented, right. The Donor
Advice Fund has been around for decades. This idea of
an account where you can put money aside for charity,
get that charitable tax deduction, and then have the money
invested tax free, so it's available anytime you want to give.
All we've done in Daffi is reinvent that and really
(06:57):
focused it on the goal, which is to help people
be more generous. I mean when we launched Daffy. In
twenty twenty one, we're about to celebrate our fourth birthday.
We were the first fully functional donor advice fund in
the app store, and I think unfortunately a lot of
people think the Donor Advice Fund is an app or
service that's only for the wealthy, it's only for billionaires.
(07:18):
But the truth is, we think it's available for everyone.
I mean, that's why we named it, Daffy. It's the
Donor Advice Fund for you.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Love that. So I do want to talk about products,
because you and your team have thought this out very well.
There really are a bunch of different ways that you
can give and work with Daffy, with families and advisors,
and work in private stock.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Can you go over all those for everybody? Sure? Sure?
I mean there's a lot of interesting things you can
do with a donor Advice Fund that go beyond just
putting a few dollars aside every week or every month,
and many of our members do that. I mean, you
mentioned the family plan. For a lot of families, when
you're raising your children, or if you have nieces or nephews,
you have siblings, you have parents, giving isn't usually just
(07:58):
a solitary thing. Right, It ties to values, it ties
to organizations. A lot of people like to do it together,
and so Daffy is unique in that it has a
family plan. You can add up to twenty four people
onto your plan. I mean, I have all four of
my children on the plan. And what that means is,
as parents, any time my wife and I decide to
give to an organization, my children get an alert on
(08:21):
their device about it. Love that which you may know
these days in twenty twenty five, that's one of the
only ways you can get your children's attention. Yes, but
it leads these great dinner conversations about what we support
and why as a family, and it even has the
ability for the children to make their own recommendations of
who to give to, which the parents can then approve
or modify. I mean, we thought this was obvious. No
(08:42):
other donor advice fund has it. I mean, but there
isn't a technology service out there now that doesn't have
a family plan, So why wouldn't a platform for giving
do it. Of course, you can add financial advisors as well,
and of course it turns out a donor advice fund
is very flexible. A lot of people are invested in ETFs,
even crypto these days. And it turns out most of
(09:04):
us don't have a high end financial advisor or accountant
who can tell us the obvious thing, which is that
donating stock donating investments to charity is far more advantageous
in terms of saving money on taxes than donating cash.
But unfortunately, most charities don't have the ability to handle stock,
to handle ets, to handle crypto. And that's why an
(09:27):
app like Daffi is so perfect. You can give us
the stock, you can give us the ETFs, give us
the crypto, get that same great tax advantage, and then
we get the cash to the charity you care about.
So it's really a win win all around when you're
using a service like daffy love it. How does membership work? Oh,
that's one of the things we're most proud of at Daffi.
So it turns out most donor advice funds have a
(09:49):
business model that they borrowed from the investment industry, which
is that they charge a percentage of assets, and a
pretty high one. I mean Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, I mean Vanguard,
I love this is one of the lowest cost services
out there. But even Vanguard has a twenty five thousand
dollars minimum on their account and charges zero point six
percent a year sixty basis points. It's called which means
(10:12):
that if you have an account, you're paying. If you
have one hundred thousand dollars account, you might be paying
six hundred dollars a year at DAFFI. We didn't like
that focus on the high end on making money that way,
so we borrow our business model from a lot of
successful nonprofits out there, which is we charge a simple
flat membership fee, right so we're free under one hundred dollars.
(10:33):
Most of our members pay three dollars a month, and
if you want advanced features, like if you want a
family plan, or if you want to donate large amounts
of stock or crypto, et cetera, we have higher end
plans at like five dollars a month and twenty dollars
a month. But our whole goal was to build a
platform that really tied to what we thought our members
wanted most, which is not to give once or twice,
(10:54):
not to just get a tax benefit in a year
that's convenient, but set up a system when they give
every year. They have a community, you have a membership,
they have a platform that supports that effort.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And I'm not sure it's you know, it's always trending
and it's fluid and ever changing. But currently, when you're
seeing a donor trend right now, what are you seeing?
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Well, the biggest trend that we're seeing right now is
people looking at stocks and crypto as something that they
can give to charity. I mean for a lot of people,
they never even thought about that. You know, it's so
hard grain in us when someone asks us to give,
to reach into our wallet, to reach for that checkbook
to give money. But it turns out when you donate
investments you get two benefits. You not only get the
(11:36):
tax deduction for making a charitable donation for the full
market value of the investment, but you never have to
pay the capital gains taxes. And so what we're seeing
is a lot of people discovering donor advice funds like
Daffy and then taking those investments that they may have
made five or ten years ago. Right it could be
a sleepy index fund, it could be something exciting like
crypto or anything in between, and the idea of in
(11:59):
the good years, putting some of that money aside for charity.
Is not only great for your taxes, but means in
the not so good years, you have money to give.
And I think for all of us, that's really what
we want to be able to do, is support the
organizations we care about, whether it's a good year or
a not so good year. And we've had both of
(12:19):
those in the last decade or two, and so I
think we all know what that feels like.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Well, speaking of years, it was about just almost a
year and a half since we last spoke to you,
and I imagine that there's a lot of growth in
their changes. And then I think the world has changed
in the last year. You and I can agree on that,
of all the different things that are happening tech wise
and the landscape and everything that's going on. How has
growth been for Daffy and you and your team over
the last year.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Oh, it's been phenomenal. I mean it's really been exciting.
I mean, this platform is so new. We're about to
celebrate our fourth birthday. But in that first year, we saw,
you know, we had assets, we saw people put aside
about twenty million dollars and we were excited in the
second year to see that number. Well, we closed our
second year with over one hundred and thirty million dollars
to put aside for charity, and then that got blown
(13:02):
away last year. In our thirty year, we ended twenty
twenty four with over three hundred and twenty four million
dollars put aside for charity, and we think this year
is going to be even bigger. I mean, the truth is,
the last couple of years have been very good in
the markets for stocks, ETFs, even crypto is back and
you know, hitting all time highs. And so fortunately what
(13:24):
we're seeing is that a lot of people, both for
taxes and because they want to give back to the
communities and organizations they care about, are putting more and
more money aside, particularly stock in crypto, so that it's
available to support those organizations for people in need, because
let's face it, there's still a lot of causes, a
lot of issues and a lot of people who need help,
(13:46):
and so I think it's a very normal aspect that
when the economy is moving in one direction to put
some of that money aside for a rainy day, but
that also includes rainy days for people other than yourself,
and so we're just seeing this incredible motivation for people
to give and to put money aside for people who need.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
It, adam, without making any assumptions about another product that's
like yours out there. But if you were to differentiate
yourself from any competition that's trying to do what Daffi's doing,
how do you differentiate yourself from them?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Well, I mean our biggest differentiations are the business model,
the way that we make money, and the technology. I mean,
obviously I'm the technology for myself. I'm very proud. I mean,
download the app, go to daffy dot org, play with it.
You'll see the difference. It's not just a little bit better.
But also I would say the business model is a
big deal for a lot of people. They want to
see that money go to charity, right. They don't want
(14:35):
to feed they don't they want to pay those high
fees that are associated with existing donor advice funds. And
so we find that our membership model paying you three
dollars a month really appealing to a lot of people.
If I had to pick anything else, I would say
that these days, like I said, there is so much
excitement around the stock market, around crypto, around ETFs. We're
(14:56):
seeing more and more people love this ability of putting
some of those gains, some of those wins aside for charity.
I mean, if you were lucky enough to invest in
a stock like Nvidia years ago, you're sitting on a
lot of games, and so the idea of being able
to take a small percentage of those shares and put
them aside for the organizations you support. That's where we
(15:16):
see a lot of the energy around Daffy these days,
just making it easy to do the right thing.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Well, it sounds like things continue to go well, and
we kind of havel joke in the series that it's
not always unicorns and rainbows all the time. There are
challenges in the industry for everybody out there. So if
there's a current challenge for you and your team and
people that are on the platform, is there one?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Oh, I mean there obviously is. I mean, it's funny
you joke about unicorns and rainbows that often. I think
that describes Silicon Valley sometimes when the weather's cooperating. Yes,
But fundamentally, our biggest, our biggest issue is that we
don't have to convince most people to give I mean,
most of us were raised with this idea that some
(15:56):
money should be put aside for those less fortune than yourselves,
regardless of what tradition, and it's fairly universal, but most
people don't know that an account like this exists. I mean,
we've had fifty years where we've learned about you know,
iras and four one ks, and you might talk to
someone who knows about a five to twenty nine plan.
But we're still at a place where a couple million
people have donor advice fess in the US, but fifty
(16:18):
to sixty million households give to charity every year. So
our number one challenge at DAFY is just getting the
word out that there's an account out there that's smart
for you. It's smart about taxes, but also is a
better way to give. I mean, what we see in
our data is that people who put money aside for
charity end up giving more every year because they've taken
(16:40):
that first step of putting money aside. And so a
lot of our effort is just getting that word out.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I wanted to talk to you about leadership. We always
bring this up in the series because, as I mentioned
a little bit earlier, not only do a lot of
CEOs and company leaders listen to the series, but a
lot of people that future will be in entrepreneurs and
have their own companies release aspired to do that. And
I love to talk about leadership because I know it
means a little bit different for everybody out there when
it comes to a culture and your team and all
(17:06):
the important aspects of starting a company on how hard
it is not only to start but also sustain. With
that said, when I bring up leadership to you, dam
what does it mean to you and how do you
execute it?
Speaker 1 (17:17):
It means a lot of things. But I've had some
time to think about this, especially having run multiple organizations
over my career, and I still get back to the
basics that really one of the most important things a
leader does for an organization is literally just define the strategy.
What game are we playing? And how do you keep score?
(17:39):
And more often than not, I see an organization's leadership
failure when one of those two things hasn't been done right.
You'll see leaders who talk a lot about strategy, but
they don't give their team a yardstick to measure their
progress their success, or they're so focused on metrics they're
using them to control their people rather than to empower
them to come up with even better ideas than they
(18:00):
could themselves. And so I'm a huge believer in the
organizations that I run of getting those two things right right,
what game are we playing and how do we keep score?
And then once you do that, my experience has been
that if you hire great, smart, ambitious, trustworthy people and
you define those two things for them, they'll really surprise you,
(18:20):
not just with the ideas that they come up with,
but the execution and the quality when when people feel
empowered to actually really invest in a platform and they
know why they're doing it, they know the purpose. I've
always been rewarded by the ideas and actually the products
that get built by teams that are empowered that way.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
If you can indulge me, I'd like to dovetail off that,
because once again, there's a lot of people that would
love to start their own company, and I understand that
your journey is very specific to you, but starting a
company and how hard it is, and then to be
sustainable and make sure the execution goes well with your
founders and your team members and your managers, and then
of course your clients and everybody else that goes with
starting a company. Can you talk to just a little
(19:04):
bit about starting a company? And what people might be
up against and what they need to do for best execution.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Well, I have good news about starting a company, and
that is it may not have ever been easier to
do so. There are just so many tools and services
out there, platforms like stripe at list, the ability to
incorporate a company, to get a banking relationship, to actually
do all the legal basics of getting a company going.
That is in a much better place than probably it
(19:31):
has ever been. But that being said, starting a company,
I think is a very hard journey, and so the
advice I get founders in the beginning is one you
don't start a company thinking you're just going to do
it this week or this month. If this is not
a business, if this is not a problem, if this
is not a market where you honestly and authentically would
(19:52):
be excited to work on solving that problem, not for years,
but potentially for a decade or more, then you probably
I want to go down the path of starting a company.
It's not a short term win, it's not a quick
way to make a buck. But if you're passionate about
an area, then you dive into where can you really
add value and for who? Right a lot of what
(20:13):
I talk to with the founders is, you know, I
talk to a lot of engineers, and so they're always
obsessed with the technology of what they can build now
that they couldn't build yesterday. And that's fantastic, But who
are you building it for? What problem are you solving
for them? How do you really create economic value? I mean,
that's something economists talk about all the time, but the
truth is a very human thing. How are you creating
(20:35):
value for your customers? How do they end up better
off from using your service, your product, then they would
be without you. And if you don't have a great
answer to that question, right, if it's just a business
where you think there's a way to you know, make
a quick buck, some way you can make something for
ninety cents and then sell it for a dollar, that
may not be enough. That may be this market is
(20:57):
very competitive, et cetera. But what I say out there
is actually the opposite. I see a lot of people
who have great ideas, who have identified gaps in the market, customers, bases,
et cetera. They try to make it so big. But
I always encourage founders that just start there. Know the
target market, who you're going after, You don't have to
solve a problem for everyone. Right, there's eight billion people
(21:19):
on the planet. You actually don't have to solve every
problem that all those people have. A lot of great
businesses start with a very focused market and a very
significant problem for that focused market. It may not affect everyone,
but for those people, you could create immense value for
them with your new product or service. And so I
encourage founders to just start there. Start with that product,
(21:40):
start with that service, know who you're designing for. And
then once you go down that path, have enough humility
to realize that you're only going to get it about
half right, and you're going to learn so much from
actually trying to build this product, trying to sell this product,
hearing from the people using your product, and so keeping
an open mind to that feedback and that balance between
(22:01):
your almost the hubris that you have to have the
ego to start a new business, to start a new company,
and the humility that you need to actually listen to
what your customers, that target market are telling you. I mean,
that's the struggle that a lot of founders and leaders
deal with when they build new businesses.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, well, very well said, and thank you for sharing
I think that's fantastic stuff and great advice. I did
want to recap your thoughts about what we talked about,
and we are going to tell everybody and remind them
one more time how to download the app and where
the website is and all. That's kind of good stuff.
But Adam maybe did some final thoughts about what we
talked about a Daffy the floor is your, sir.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Well, you know, the idea behind DAFI is really simple,
but I could probably boil it down to just one thing.
Giving is important to most of us, and if something's important,
it's worth having a goal around it. And so whatever
you give to charity in any given year, whether it's
hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars or more, I would
encourage everyone to just set a goal for their giving,
(22:59):
even if it's just adding up what you did last year,
and then use an app or service like Daffy to
kind of put that money aside so that it's available
to give when you need it. It does it in
a tax effective way. The money is not sitting idle,
It's invested and can grow over time. But it lets
you focus on the most important thing, which are the
causes and organizations that speak to you, that speak to
(23:21):
your family, and having the resources to give when you're
inspired to do so. And so if don't let downloading
an app like Daffi helps you do that, I highly
encourage it. Right go to daffi dot org, put some
money aside, and then enjoy the freedom that comes of
being able to give whenever you want to give. Believe me,
your taxes will thank you for it, but more importantly,
(23:43):
you will feel better about what you're doing with.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Your money outstanding. And you gave the website. But we
can also download the app anywhere.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Correct, Oh, correct, absolutely, it's available in the app store.
Just type in Daffi.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Thank you so much for your time and continued.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Success, Dennis, thank you for having us here.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Our community partner, M and T Banks reports CEOs you
should know as part of their ongoing commitment to building
strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses within them.
As a bank for communities, M and T believes in
dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local businesses thrive
because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed.
M and T Bank presents CEOs. You should know Howard
by I heard media. Let's meet Adam Nash.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
He is the co founder and CEO for Daffy, a
platform that allows users to donate charities by creating a
donor advice fund that you can use by app or web.
Before we talk more about Adams an incredible company, I
first asked him to talk a little bit about himself,
where he's from and his origin story.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Well, I actually I grew up in Silicon Valley. Actually,
my parents are doctors, live in the area. I'm the
oldest of four children, and I've lived here most of
my life except for small stints around the country.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
So Adam not setting the bar high parents and doctors
and you're the firstborn. My goodness, pressure was on.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah. Well, you know, it's always a little disappointing did
not get a doctored or a medical degree. But you know,
it turns out I'm the first engineer in the family.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I think you're just fine. I think everybody's really proud.
So listen, we are here to talk about Daffy. And
it's been about a year since you joined us in
this series last time. And I know a lot is changed,
and the world is flu and AI is here and everything.
So we got a lot to talk about the company.
But there's going to be a lot of people that
are listening to this series and a lot of future entrepreneurs.
As you were coming out of school, what did you
(01:09):
want to do well?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You know, my focus in my undergraduate was on computer science.
Actually ended up getting a graduate degree continuing the study
in human computer interaction. I've just always been fascinated with
the way that people interact with technology. Right. Technology is
very rational, it's ones and zeros, yes and no. People
are more complicated. We have emotions, we have feelings, we
(01:32):
have history, we have narrative, and so finding ways for
people to not just interact with technology but get the
most value out of it and feel good about it
was just something I always found fascinating, and so most
of my career has been trying to find those bridges
between what technology can do now and how people can
(01:52):
take the best advantage of it to make their lives
better and solve problems that they have. We're going to.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Get Mission and Vision and all the things and all
the cool products that Daffy offers up and kind of
go over everything and what's happened over the last year
since we last talked to you. But I'm always interested,
and I know our listeners are about how somebody comes
up with an idea that you did for Daffy, and
I just you know, it's so fascinating, and I always
you know when I when I heard about your product
when we met over a year ago, Well, it's just
(02:20):
a fantastic idea, and you always wonder, well, why didn't
anybody think of that and execute it? Well, it takes
a lot to do that, folks, and you're going to
find out about that as Adam talks about the company.
But as you came up as co founder of Daffy
and you saw a hole in the industry about what
you wanted to do. Adam, how did the old origin
come together?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Well, I mean I always got to see a lot
of value and starting first with the customer problem, with
what people really need and want in their lives. And
you know, Daffy was founded in the midst of the pandemic,
so it was obviously home there's a lot of stress
and strain and family, but there was a lot of
focus on community too, and rediscovery of neighbors and neighborhoods
and trying to support each other. And I I really
(03:00):
was looking across at all this great innovation we've had
in the last ten or twenty years in finance, right,
all these great new apps and services to help people
save better, spend better, and best better. And I asked
the question, you know, why why not giving right? Giving
really matters? I mean, I'm the father of four children.
My kids went to this wonderful school where every Friday
(03:22):
they would all the kids would bring in their spare
change and you know, put it a little piggy bank
and then vote every quarter about which local nonprofit to
give it to. I mean, giving is something that's not
just a financial task. It's something that we deeply care about,
we teach our children. And yet where's the great app,
where's the great service that helps us give better? And
so my co founder Al Hutter and I were talking
(03:44):
about this, and we really believe that with where technology
had gotten to financial infrastructure, all these great services, we
could do something for giving that you know, frankly the
market needed and that millions of people wanted. I mean
about sixty million American households charity every year. And so
building an app or a service dedicated to helping people
(04:05):
be more generous just felt like a great way to
spend our next run in terms of building a company.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
All right, Adam, Before we get to exactly what you
do in the great products that you offer through Daffy,
I think mission and vision is always very important. And
when I talk to leaders of companies, they're very specific
and I know you are too when it comes to
mission and vision. So what is that for Daffi.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Dafi's mission is very simple. We exist to help people
be more generous more often. Like our goal is to
basically take this wonderful type of account that's existed in
the United States for decades called the donor Advice Fund,
which is a tax advantaged account for charity, and just
help people do the simple thing, which is, when it's
(04:46):
convenient for them, put some money aside for those less
fortunate than themselves. And actually that's a lot of our vision.
Our vision is a world where everyone puts something aside
proactively for those who are less fortunate than themselves. And
so every we wake up and try and think about how,
with technology, with design, how we can come up with
better ways for people to not just put money aside
(05:08):
for charity, but actually discover the causes and organizations that
they care most about.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
You've touched on this a little bit, Adam, But if
you could give all of our listeners that are being
introduced to DAFI for the first time kind of a
thirty thousand foot view of about exactly what you do,
what would you tell them?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, it's really simple. You know, when most people ask
me about Daffy, what I tell them is is that,
you know, if you're the type of person who gives
money to charity, you should have a separate account for right.
We have separate accounts for a lot of the financial
things in our lives that we care about. We have
separate accounts for retirements. Some of us have separate accounts
for college savings, and most of us give to charity
(05:45):
on a regular basis. We just do it reactively. We
wait until someone asks us to give, and then we
have these two hard problems, right, you know, how much
can we afford to give? And then of course who
do we give the money to? And it just doesn't
need to be that complicated. So when people ask about Daffy,
I say, it's a simple app. You download it, you
put money aside for charity, You get the tax deduction
(06:08):
for that right away, the money's invested tax free, and
then any time you're inspired to give to any of
the one point seven million or more charities across the US,
it's just a few taps on your phone and the
money goes to the cause or organization you care about.
So it's really a wonderful app or service for people
who give regularly and solves a lot of problems for them,
and it's a smart way to do it.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well, listen, I think you've got everybody's attention on how
cool the app and also the web based product is.
With that said, how does daffi work?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Oh, it's really simple. Like I said, the Donor Advice
Fund is not something that we invented, right. The Donor
Advice Fund has been around for decades. This idea of
an account where you can put money aside for charity,
get that charitable tax deduction, and then have the money
invested tax free, so it's available anytime you want to give.
All we've done in Daffi is reinvent that and really
(06:57):
focused it on the goal, which is to help people
be more generous. I mean when we launched Daffy. In
twenty twenty one, we're about to celebrate our fourth birthday.
We were the first fully functional donor advice fund in
the app store, and I think unfortunately a lot of
people think the Donor Advice Fund is an app or
service that's only for the wealthy, it's only for billionaires.
(07:18):
But the truth is, we think it's available for everyone.
I mean, that's why we named it, Daffy. It's the
Donor Advice Fund for you.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Love that. So I do want to talk about products,
because you and your team have thought this out very well.
There really are a bunch of different ways that you
can give and work with Daffy, with families and advisors,
and work in private stock.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Can you go over all those for everybody? Sure? Sure?
I mean there's a lot of interesting things you can
do with a donor Advice Fund that go beyond just
putting a few dollars aside every week or every month,
and many of our members do that. I mean, you
mentioned the family plan. For a lot of families, when
you're raising your children, or if you have nieces or nephews,
you have siblings, you have parents, giving isn't usually just
(07:58):
a solitary thing. Right, It ties to values, it ties
to organizations. A lot of people like to do it together,
and so Daffy is unique in that it has a
family plan. You can add up to twenty four people
onto your plan. I mean, I have all four of
my children on the plan. And what that means is,
as parents, any time my wife and I decide to
give to an organization, my children get an alert on
(08:21):
their device about it. Love that which you may know
these days in twenty twenty five, that's one of the
only ways you can get your children's attention. Yes, but
it leads these great dinner conversations about what we support
and why as a family, and it even has the
ability for the children to make their own recommendations of
who to give to, which the parents can then approve
or modify. I mean, we thought this was obvious. No
(08:42):
other donor advice fund has it. I mean, but there
isn't a technology service out there now that doesn't have
a family plan, So why wouldn't a platform for giving
do it. Of course, you can add financial advisors as well,
and of course it turns out a donor advice fund
is very flexible. A lot of people are invested in ETFs,
even crypto these days. And it turns out most of
(09:04):
us don't have a high end financial advisor or accountant
who can tell us the obvious thing, which is that
donating stock donating investments to charity is far more advantageous
in terms of saving money on taxes than donating cash.
But unfortunately, most charities don't have the ability to handle stock,
to handle ets, to handle crypto. And that's why an
(09:27):
app like Daffi is so perfect. You can give us
the stock, you can give us the ETFs, give us
the crypto, get that same great tax advantage, and then
we get the cash to the charity you care about.
So it's really a win win all around when you're
using a service like daffy love it. How does membership work? Oh,
that's one of the things we're most proud of at Daffi.
So it turns out most donor advice funds have a
(09:49):
business model that they borrowed from the investment industry, which
is that they charge a percentage of assets, and a
pretty high one. I mean Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, I mean Vanguard,
I love this is one of the lowest cost services
out there. But even Vanguard has a twenty five thousand
dollars minimum on their account and charges zero point six
percent a year sixty basis points. It's called which means
(10:12):
that if you have an account, you're paying. If you
have one hundred thousand dollars account, you might be paying
six hundred dollars a year at DAFFI. We didn't like
that focus on the high end on making money that way,
so we borrow our business model from a lot of
successful nonprofits out there, which is we charge a simple
flat membership fee, right so we're free under one hundred dollars.
(10:33):
Most of our members pay three dollars a month, and
if you want advanced features, like if you want a
family plan, or if you want to donate large amounts
of stock or crypto, et cetera, we have higher end
plans at like five dollars a month and twenty dollars
a month. But our whole goal was to build a
platform that really tied to what we thought our members
wanted most, which is not to give once or twice,
(10:54):
not to just get a tax benefit in a year
that's convenient, but set up a system when they give
every year. They have a community, you have a membership,
they have a platform that supports that effort.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And I'm not sure it's you know, it's always trending
and it's fluid and ever changing. But currently, when you're
seeing a donor trend right now, what are you seeing?
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Well, the biggest trend that we're seeing right now is
people looking at stocks and crypto as something that they
can give to charity. I mean for a lot of people,
they never even thought about that. You know, it's so
hard grain in us when someone asks us to give,
to reach into our wallet, to reach for that checkbook
to give money. But it turns out when you donate
investments you get two benefits. You not only get the
(11:36):
tax deduction for making a charitable donation for the full
market value of the investment, but you never have to
pay the capital gains taxes. And so what we're seeing
is a lot of people discovering donor advice funds like
Daffy and then taking those investments that they may have
made five or ten years ago. Right it could be
a sleepy index fund, it could be something exciting like
crypto or anything in between, and the idea of in
(11:59):
the good years, putting some of that money aside for charity.
Is not only great for your taxes, but means in
the not so good years, you have money to give.
And I think for all of us, that's really what
we want to be able to do, is support the
organizations we care about, whether it's a good year or
a not so good year. And we've had both of
(12:19):
those in the last decade or two, and so I
think we all know what that feels like.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Well, speaking of years, it was about just almost a
year and a half since we last spoke to you,
and I imagine that there's a lot of growth in
their changes. And then I think the world has changed
in the last year. You and I can agree on that,
of all the different things that are happening tech wise
and the landscape and everything that's going on. How has
growth been for Daffy and you and your team over
the last year.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Oh, it's been phenomenal. I mean it's really been exciting.
I mean, this platform is so new. We're about to
celebrate our fourth birthday. But in that first year, we saw,
you know, we had assets, we saw people put aside
about twenty million dollars and we were excited in the
second year to see that number. Well, we closed our
second year with over one hundred and thirty million dollars
to put aside for charity, and then that got blown
(13:02):
away last year. In our thirty year, we ended twenty
twenty four with over three hundred and twenty four million
dollars put aside for charity, and we think this year
is going to be even bigger. I mean, the truth is,
the last couple of years have been very good in
the markets for stocks, ETFs, even crypto is back and
you know, hitting all time highs. And so fortunately what
(13:24):
we're seeing is that a lot of people, both for
taxes and because they want to give back to the
communities and organizations they care about, are putting more and
more money aside, particularly stock in crypto, so that it's
available to support those organizations for people in need, because
let's face it, there's still a lot of causes, a
lot of issues and a lot of people who need help,
(13:46):
and so I think it's a very normal aspect that
when the economy is moving in one direction to put
some of that money aside for a rainy day, but
that also includes rainy days for people other than yourself,
and so we're just seeing this incredible motivation for people
to give and to put money aside for people who need.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
It, adam, without making any assumptions about another product that's
like yours out there. But if you were to differentiate
yourself from any competition that's trying to do what Daffi's doing,
how do you differentiate yourself from them?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Well, I mean our biggest differentiations are the business model,
the way that we make money, and the technology. I mean,
obviously I'm the technology for myself. I'm very proud. I mean,
download the app, go to daffy dot org, play with it.
You'll see the difference. It's not just a little bit better.
But also I would say the business model is a
big deal for a lot of people. They want to
see that money go to charity, right. They don't want
(14:35):
to feed they don't they want to pay those high
fees that are associated with existing donor advice funds. And
so we find that our membership model paying you three
dollars a month really appealing to a lot of people.
If I had to pick anything else, I would say
that these days, like I said, there is so much
excitement around the stock market, around crypto, around ETFs. We're
(14:56):
seeing more and more people love this ability of putting
some of those gains, some of those wins aside for charity.
I mean, if you were lucky enough to invest in
a stock like Nvidia years ago, you're sitting on a
lot of games, and so the idea of being able
to take a small percentage of those shares and put
them aside for the organizations you support. That's where we
(15:16):
see a lot of the energy around Daffy these days,
just making it easy to do the right thing.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Well, it sounds like things continue to go well, and
we kind of havel joke in the series that it's
not always unicorns and rainbows all the time. There are
challenges in the industry for everybody out there. So if
there's a current challenge for you and your team and
people that are on the platform, is there one?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Oh, I mean there obviously is. I mean, it's funny
you joke about unicorns and rainbows that often. I think
that describes Silicon Valley sometimes when the weather's cooperating. Yes,
But fundamentally, our biggest, our biggest issue is that we
don't have to convince most people to give I mean,
most of us were raised with this idea that some
(15:56):
money should be put aside for those less fortune than yourselves,
regardless of what tradition, and it's fairly universal, but most
people don't know that an account like this exists. I mean,
we've had fifty years where we've learned about you know,
iras and four one ks, and you might talk to
someone who knows about a five to twenty nine plan.
But we're still at a place where a couple million
people have donor advice fess in the US, but fifty
(16:18):
to sixty million households give to charity every year. So
our number one challenge at DAFY is just getting the
word out that there's an account out there that's smart
for you. It's smart about taxes, but also is a
better way to give. I mean, what we see in
our data is that people who put money aside for
charity end up giving more every year because they've taken
(16:40):
that first step of putting money aside. And so a
lot of our effort is just getting that word out.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I wanted to talk to you about leadership. We always
bring this up in the series because, as I mentioned
a little bit earlier, not only do a lot of
CEOs and company leaders listen to the series, but a
lot of people that future will be in entrepreneurs and
have their own companies release aspired to do that. And
I love to talk about leadership because I know it
means a little bit different for everybody out there when
it comes to a culture and your team and all
(17:06):
the important aspects of starting a company on how hard
it is not only to start but also sustain. With
that said, when I bring up leadership to you, dam
what does it mean to you and how do you
execute it?
Speaker 1 (17:17):
It means a lot of things. But I've had some
time to think about this, especially having run multiple organizations
over my career, and I still get back to the
basics that really one of the most important things a
leader does for an organization is literally just define the strategy.
What game are we playing? And how do you keep score?
(17:39):
And more often than not, I see an organization's leadership
failure when one of those two things hasn't been done right.
You'll see leaders who talk a lot about strategy, but
they don't give their team a yardstick to measure their
progress their success, or they're so focused on metrics they're
using them to control their people rather than to empower
them to come up with even better ideas than they
(18:00):
could themselves. And so I'm a huge believer in the
organizations that I run of getting those two things right right,
what game are we playing and how do we keep score?
And then once you do that, my experience has been
that if you hire great, smart, ambitious, trustworthy people and
you define those two things for them, they'll really surprise you,
(18:20):
not just with the ideas that they come up with,
but the execution and the quality when when people feel
empowered to actually really invest in a platform and they
know why they're doing it, they know the purpose. I've
always been rewarded by the ideas and actually the products
that get built by teams that are empowered that way.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
If you can indulge me, I'd like to dovetail off that,
because once again, there's a lot of people that would
love to start their own company, and I understand that
your journey is very specific to you, but starting a
company and how hard it is, and then to be
sustainable and make sure the execution goes well with your
founders and your team members and your managers, and then
of course your clients and everybody else that goes with
starting a company. Can you talk to just a little
(19:04):
bit about starting a company? And what people might be
up against and what they need to do for best execution.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Well, I have good news about starting a company, and
that is it may not have ever been easier to
do so. There are just so many tools and services
out there, platforms like stripe at list, the ability to
incorporate a company, to get a banking relationship, to actually
do all the legal basics of getting a company going.
That is in a much better place than probably it
(19:31):
has ever been. But that being said, starting a company,
I think is a very hard journey, and so the
advice I get founders in the beginning is one you
don't start a company thinking you're just going to do
it this week or this month. If this is not
a business, if this is not a problem, if this
is not a market where you honestly and authentically would
(19:52):
be excited to work on solving that problem, not for years,
but potentially for a decade or more, then you probably
I want to go down the path of starting a company.
It's not a short term win, it's not a quick
way to make a buck. But if you're passionate about
an area, then you dive into where can you really
add value and for who? Right a lot of what
(20:13):
I talk to with the founders is, you know, I
talk to a lot of engineers, and so they're always
obsessed with the technology of what they can build now
that they couldn't build yesterday. And that's fantastic, But who
are you building it for? What problem are you solving
for them? How do you really create economic value? I mean,
that's something economists talk about all the time, but the
truth is a very human thing. How are you creating
(20:35):
value for your customers? How do they end up better
off from using your service, your product, then they would
be without you. And if you don't have a great
answer to that question, right, if it's just a business
where you think there's a way to you know, make
a quick buck, some way you can make something for
ninety cents and then sell it for a dollar, that
may not be enough. That may be this market is
(20:57):
very competitive, et cetera. But what I say out there
is actually the opposite. I see a lot of people
who have great ideas, who have identified gaps in the market, customers, bases,
et cetera. They try to make it so big. But
I always encourage founders that just start there. Know the
target market, who you're going after, You don't have to
solve a problem for everyone. Right, there's eight billion people
(21:19):
on the planet. You actually don't have to solve every
problem that all those people have. A lot of great
businesses start with a very focused market and a very
significant problem for that focused market. It may not affect everyone,
but for those people, you could create immense value for
them with your new product or service. And so I
encourage founders to just start there. Start with that product,
(21:40):
start with that service, know who you're designing for. And
then once you go down that path, have enough humility
to realize that you're only going to get it about
half right, and you're going to learn so much from
actually trying to build this product, trying to sell this product,
hearing from the people using your product, and so keeping
an open mind to that feedback and that balance between
(22:01):
your almost the hubris that you have to have the
ego to start a new business, to start a new company,
and the humility that you need to actually listen to
what your customers, that target market are telling you. I mean,
that's the struggle that a lot of founders and leaders
deal with when they build new businesses.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, well, very well said, and thank you for sharing
I think that's fantastic stuff and great advice. I did
want to recap your thoughts about what we talked about,
and we are going to tell everybody and remind them
one more time how to download the app and where
the website is and all. That's kind of good stuff.
But Adam maybe did some final thoughts about what we
talked about a Daffy the floor is your, sir.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Well, you know, the idea behind DAFI is really simple,
but I could probably boil it down to just one thing.
Giving is important to most of us, and if something's important,
it's worth having a goal around it. And so whatever
you give to charity in any given year, whether it's
hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars or more, I would
encourage everyone to just set a goal for their giving,
(22:59):
even if it's just adding up what you did last year,
and then use an app or service like Daffy to
kind of put that money aside so that it's available
to give when you need it. It does it in
a tax effective way. The money is not sitting idle,
It's invested and can grow over time. But it lets
you focus on the most important thing, which are the
causes and organizations that speak to you, that speak to
(23:21):
your family, and having the resources to give when you're
inspired to do so. And so if don't let downloading
an app like Daffi helps you do that, I highly
encourage it. Right go to daffi dot org, put some
money aside, and then enjoy the freedom that comes of
being able to give whenever you want to give. Believe me,
your taxes will thank you for it, but more importantly,
(23:43):
you will feel better about what you're doing with.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Your money outstanding. And you gave the website. But we
can also download the app anywhere.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Correct, Oh, correct, absolutely, it's available in the app store.
Just type in Daffi.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Thank you so much for your time and continued.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Success, Dennis, thank you for having us here.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Our community partner, M and T Banks reports CEOs you
should know as part of their ongoing commitment to building
strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses within them.
As a bank for communities, M and T believes in
dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local businesses thrive
because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed.
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