Recommending Grants
Recommend a Grant of your DAF funds to a particular nonprofit
A Grant Recommendation is an exercise of your advisory privileges to transfer or "award" money from a Fund to an Organization. In this tutorial, you'll use the funds generated from the sale of your donated tokens to recommend grants to your favorite organizations.
Navigate to Endaoment and connect your wallet. Then, navigate to the fund you want to make a grant from and click
Make a Grant
on the right side of the page.Search for the organization of your choice, then click on an Org to select the destination. If you need assistance identifying an organization that meets your personal interests, please reach out to us for help. We are happy to recommend impactful nonprofits based on your interest areas.
NOTE: If an organization's contract has not been deployed yet, it will be flagged as
Not Deployed
, and Endaoment will ask for you to help cover the deployment cost for creating the organization's contract address.If a nonprofit's smart contract has not yet been deployed, you'll be prompted to do so on their profile, by clicking Deploy. This is a one-time process that will allow you (and all other Endaoment users) to recommend grants to the organization.

After clicking
Deploy
, a wallet interation displaying the cost estimate (gas fee) of deploying a smart contract address for the organization will appear, simply sign the transaction using your wallet and the org will be deployed.Next, determine the size of the grant you would like to make to your chosen organization. All amounts here are shown in USD.
You will also have the option of indicating a specific grant purpose. This means that you may restrict your funds for specific projects or departments at the recipient organization. If you do not want to restrict use of your gift, please leave
Special Instructions
blank. Organizations always prefer unrestricted grants!The IRS has some policies on what you are allowed to fund (e.g. you may not direct the grant to support a specific individual or family, read more: Fund Policies & Procedures). In particlar, you cannot use a grant to purchase membership or gala/tickets, pay for a pledge or benefit individuals directly. As you'll see further down, you are required to sign a statement that attests to affirm that you and any donor advisor or any related person or 35% controlled entity of yours or any donor advisor are not receiving any benefit that would cause the donation to be non-tax-deductible as required by law.
While we encourage you to support projects which appeal to you, don’t forget that grantees also need general support grants, giving them more flexibility and allowing them to "keep the lights on."
- Grant Purpose: This is where you would fill out notes to accompany your grant; things like In honor of my friend Robert. This information is not about the specific use case of the grant. This information is stored on chain.
- Special Instructions: Note: Receiving nonprofits almost always prefer this to be left blank. This is where you would fill out the private information on the restricted use case of the grant; things like fund this specific youth outreach position. This information is not stored on chain.
- Recommended By: This is where you'd put the name of the person recommending this grant or the folks that the grant is made on behalf of. This is the info we will pass onto the receiving organization. This information is not stored on chain.
Once you have finished entering this data, click
Recommend Grant
. A wallet interation displaying the cost estimate (gas fee) of recommending a grant will appear, simply sign the transaction using your wallet and the grant will be broadcast on chain.
Grants from DAFs must be consistent with donations that are tax-deductible, and cannot provide any prohibited benefits.
Prohibited benefits include tickets to a gala, or attendance at a golf outing (learn more at the IRS website). Signing this statement affirms that you are not receiving any benefit that would cause the donation to be non-tax-deductible as required by law. By agreeing to our terms, you are agreeing to the below:
This grant recommendation does not represent the payment of any pledge or other financial obligation. I/we will not accept any benefits or privileges offered in connection with these grants, including good and services (such as auction items), admission to charitable events, dues, or membership, other than a religious institution. This grant is not intended to be combined with my/our personal check to support my/our attendance, or that of others, at a charity's event. I agree the following donation is irrevocable and for the charitable, educational, or religious purposes under the sole discretion of Endaoment
After you have submitted your recommendation, the Endaoment team will review the grant and perform any required due diligence on the recipient organization. Typically, grants are processed in a matter of days.
Curious about what goes on during this time? In addition to conducting proper due diligence, every time a new grant is made to an organization, Endaoment reaches out to that organization to ensure that they would like to accept that donation. Even if an organization is on-boarded and all set up, Endaoment still needs to connect with them to confirm that they accept every single grant that gets recommended, with particular attention paid to any special instructions attached to the grant.
If for any reason an issue comes up in the due diligence process, we'll reach out and let you know. Otherwise, your grant will be sent to the recipient organization in due course.
Congratulations on making a Grant Recommendation from your Endaoment DAF!
Last modified 1d ago