Investing in Startups with Your DAF

Yes, your charitable dollars can back founders building the future. Wild, right?

Here is the deal 👇

Most people think Donor-Advised Funds are only for writing checks to nonprofits. Lovely. Noble. Important. But also limited.

Your DAF can do so much more.

Right now, most DAF dollars sit in traditional funds, quietly tracking the market. Fine. But you can also lift a slice of that capital and put it straight to work backing founders while still keeping its ultimate purpose: funding the charities you care about.

Most of the DAF providers now let you make impact investments into private companies. That means you can support founders solving meaningful problems in the world and stay fully within the rules of your DAF.

And yes, that means you can angel invest with it.

💡 Why It Works

Using a DAF for angel investing lets you:

✔ Put your charitable capital to work in the world

You can back founders building solutions in health, climate, financial access, and everything in between.

✔ Build your own custom impact fund

Hand-pick the founders, missions, and sectors you want your DAF to champion.

✔ Make impact investments that actually reflect your values

Your giving and your investing get to speak the same language. Finally.

✔ Support underrepresented founders

DAFs are one of the most flexible ways to get early capital to new voices and new ideas.

✔ Regenerative money is about as close to magic as it gets.

Recycle your impact dollars so they solve problems, lift leaders, and strengthen ecosystems long before they reach their final philanthropic destination.

✔ Stretch your definition of “giving”

Philanthropy can be a check to a nonprofit or a vote of confidence in a founder building something the world needs.

Regenerative money is about as close to magic as it gets. You’re not just giving back. You are helping build forward.

⚙️ How It Works

The trick is simple:

1. You make a grant from your DAF to our intermediary partner, Inspire Access.
   Inspire Access is a recognized charity with just about every DAF provider.
2. Inspire Access passes that grant to us.
   We hold the money for you in a special DAF holding account on Play Money.
3. You choose your investments.
   You use the regular Play Money investment flow to tell us:
   • which company you want to back
   • how much you want to allocate
4. We deploy the capital on your behalf.
   The SPV invests in the startup. Your positions appear on your Play Money dashboard just like investments from your bank account or IRA.
5. Exits flow back to your DAF capital.
   When there is a liquidity event, we return the proceeds to your Play Money DAF holding account.
   From there, you can:
   • reinvest into another Play Money SPV, or
   • have it transferred back to your original DAF (through Inspire Access) for future grants.

📋 DAF Investing Details

• Minimum grant to Inspire Access: $25,000
  There is no maximum.
• Those funds can be deployed across multiple SPVs. Our usual minimum investment per deal still applies.
• Interested in setting this up?
  Use the chat icon on any page or email [email protected].