Hack the DAF is a systems-level intervention designed to reprogram how donor-advised fund capital flows—transforming DAFs from vehicles of preservation into engines of redistribution and repair.

Our approach integrates applied research, behavioral insight, and financial design to uncover leverage points that can redirect DAF corpus toward impact investing, especially within the Ownership Economy.

Through collaboration with MBA and professional graduate school interns, the project both advances field-level understanding and cultivates the next generation of finance leaders / wealth hackers. These students—future investors, asset managers, and advisors—will gain hands-on experience redesigning philanthropic finance to serve community wealth and inclusive growth.

This talent pipeline is supported by the Ownership Capital Lab’s founder, a Social Impact Fellow at the Haas School of Business, which facilitates graduate student engagement, and by her facilitation of Haas’ participation in the University Consortium for Employee Ownership, which creates bridges to other top business and policy schools nationwide.

The project will be benefit from advisory by three leading impact-focused DAF platforms—ImpactAssets, ImpactCharitable, and Realize Impact—ensuring that the work is grounded in real-world feasibility and aligned with existing DAF innovation efforts.

Methodology and components:

1. Develop an initial psychographic segmentation hypothesis of DAF holders—mapping motivations, barriers, and openness to impact investing—to inform targeted engagement strategies and lay the groundwork for deeper research.
2. Map the DAF ecosystem—including sponsors, intermediaries, advisors, and policy influencers—to identify high-leverage points within existing power and decision networks.
3. Design activation strategies that align behavioral drivers with new pathways and tools for DAF corpus investing.
4. Model catalytic leverage to illustrate how modest grant investments can unlock exponentially greater flows of DAF capital toward impact, to engage philanthropy to finance the next stage of the work.

Interns will apply stakeholder analysis, behavioral mapping, systems thinking, and financial modeling, guided by the Ownership Capital Lab and the project’s advisory partners.

The result: an actionable roadmap and evidence-based framework for activating donors and intermediaries—proving that even small, well-placed interventions can redirect billions in charitable capital toward inclusive, regenerative systems of ownership.

Hack the DAF: Redirecting billions from idle capital to ownership investing

Hack the DAF: Redirecting billions from idle capital to ownership investing