Financial Advisor Managed Accounts

A donor-advised fund, or DAF, is an investment account for charitable donations. The fund is held and administered by a 501(c)(3) public charity – in this case, Greater Horizons. Your clients contribute to the fund and request grants from the fund to support their favorite charitable causes. If you are the fund’s investment manager, you oversee the investments, help your clients donate assets to the fund, and ensure there is sufficient liquidity to cover your client’s grants and pay the fund’s monthly administrative fees.

There is no minimum balance required to establish a donor-advised fund at Greater Horizons. However, the assets should exceed $100,000 for the fund to be invested separately in a financial advisor managed account.

Your client should complete and sign Greater Horizons’ Donor-Advised Fund Agreement. If your client plans to contribute at least $100,000 to the fund within one year of opening, you can manage the fund’s investments on your investment platform in a financial advisor managed account. (Note: If your client’s fund will be less than $100,000, you can help them select the best option from Greater Horizons’ passively managed investment pools, and they can list you as an authorized party to access the fund if they choose.)

For financial advisor managed accounts, your client should list you as the fund’s investment manager in the Fund Agreement. Once we receive the Fund Agreement, someone from Greater Horizons will call your team to set up the custodial account for the fund’s investments. Since Greater Horizons owns the assets, you will not need to request additional signatures from your client beyond the Fund Agreement.

What we need from you:

• Your firm’s forms to set up a custodial account
  Greater Horizons will work with you to complete the forms and sign as the owner of the gifted assets, so you can set up the account on your investment platform.

What we will provide to set up the investment account:

• Greater Horizons’ authorized signers’ information
• Greater Horizons’ tax ID

Greater Horizons – not your client – owns the fund’s assets. Investment accounts are established under Greater Horizons’ tax ID, so investment growth is tax-free.

Because the assets are owned by Greater Horizons, a 501(c)(3) public charity, contributions will qualify for the maximum tax deduction allowed by law. Greater Horizons will provide written acknowledgments for donations of $250 or more for your clients’ tax records.

You can direct your questions to our Advisor Services team, which you can reach at advisorservices@greaterhorizons.org or 816.842.8139.

If your clients have questions, they can contact our Donor Services team at support@greaterhorizons.org or 866.627.3440.

In addition to donor-advised funds, Greater Horizons administers the following charitable investment vehicles:

• Supporting organizations are separate legal entities and are typically more flexible alternatives to private foundations.
• Designated funds, which support one specific charity.
• Scholarship funds, which provide scholarships to students.
• Agency funds, which charities set up to invest and build their long-term assets.
• Field-of-interest funds, which support a specific program or community.

There is no minimum balance required to establish a donor-advised fund at Greater Horizons. However, the assets should exceed $100,000 for the fund to be invested separately in a financial advisor managed account. If you’re working with a client who hasn’t reached that threshold, they can still list you as the fund’s investment manager, so you can help them choose the best investment mix from Greater Horizons’ pools. As the fund’s assets grow, we can work with you to move the fund’s investments to a financial advisor managed account.

If your client’s fund does not meet the minimum requirements for a financial advisor managed account, your client can choose an investment mix for their fund using Greater Horizons’ low-cost investment pools. Read more about Greater Horizons’ investment pools, which include ESG options.

Greater Horizons aims to provide maximum investment flexibility for financial advisor managed accounts. You have the flexibility to choose any custodian for the investment account and can conduct “business as usual” on your investment platform when managing your client’s donor-advised fund assets.

The only restrictions are:

• Investments that generate Unrelated Business Income Tax payable by Greater Horizons.
• Any transaction that results in leveraging Greater Horizons’ assets.
• Excluding mutual funds, any transaction investing in private placements, lettered stock, futures contracts, swaps, synthetic securities, derivatives, options, short sales, margin transactions or other specialized investment activities.
• No direct foreign exposure (does not include ADRs, mutual funds, ETFs and SMAs).

Please review our Financial Advisor Program Responsibilities and Guidelines for more specifics about your role. 

The liquidity account is a cash account invested in Greater Horizons’ money market pool. It allows Greater Horizons to pay the donor-advised fund’s grants and collect administrative fees without affecting the fund’s managed investments.

We will work with you or a member of your team to transfer a portion of the fund balance to the liquidity account, based on the grant activity and assessed administrative fees, which we will provide on an invoice. You can determine what positions to liquidate to create the cash.

Liquidity account assets are held in a money market pool. Earnings remain in the fund and are applied monthly.

If the investment account is held at Fidelity or Schwab, Greater Horizons can journal cash from the donor-advised fund’s investment account into Greater Horizons’ corporate account at Fidelity or Schwab. In this case, we will contact you or a member of your team via secure email or fax, letting you know how much cash we need and the date we will initiate the transfer to our corporate account, typically two days after we send the notice. If you need additional time to raise the cash, let us know, and we can adjust our timeline.

If the investment account is not held at Fidelity or Schwab, we will contact you or a member of your team via secure email or fax to request cash via check, wire or ACH.

Please review our Financial Advisor Program Responsibilities and Guidelines for specific direction regarding your role in the financial advisor managed account.

A representative from Greater Horizons will reach out every one or two years to schedule a review. If your compliance department requires an annual review, we can work with you to schedule when necessary.

While Greater Horizons owns the donor-advised fund investment account, we encourage you to work closely with your clients to implement an investment strategy that aligns with their objectives, time horizon and risk tolerance for their donor-advised fund. You can reallocate the investments at any time, as long as you follow our Financial Advisor Program Responsibilities and Guidelines. You will use your normal process with your selected custodian when rebalancing and managing your clients’ donor-advised fund.

We encourage you to provide your clients with view-only access to their donor-advised fund custodial account, so they can see investment activity alongside their personal portfolio of assets you manage for them. Greater Horizons will be listed as the owner of the custodial account.

Your clients will have access to Greater Horizons’ portal to view the full fund activity. The investment account balance is updated monthly and does not include investment activity.

If your client’s DAF assets exceed $500,000, we can provide you and your client with access to a menu of options that includes private impact investments and recoverable grants. Learn more about impact investments.

You can manage the investments of a donor-advised fund in a financial advisor managed account as long as:

• You do not contribute to the donor-advised fund.
• You are not a fund advisor or successor advisor on the donor-advised fund.
• You are not a family member of a donor, fund advisor or successor advisor for the donor-advised fund. Family members are defined as that person’s spouse, ancestors, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, siblings and the spouses of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and siblings.
• The persons listed above do not own or control more than 35% of your investment management firm.

If you are working with your client to move assets from their personal investment accounts that you manage to their donor-advised fund investment account, you can simply journal the assets to the donor-advised fund investment account. We ask that you notify us at advisorservices@greaterhorizons.org when you initiate a transfer to the fund’s investment account. This helps ensure we record the gift efficiently and accurately reflect who should be listed on the gift acknowledgment for your client’s tax records.

If your client would like to contribute using assets you aren’t managing, they can log in to Greater Horizons’ portal to make a contribution using their credit or debit card. They can also find contribution instructions for mailing checks, cash transfers via wire or ACH, and transferring publicly traded securities. You and your clients can also view our contribution instructions.

If your client would like to contribute complex assets, like closely held business interests or real estate, we recommend contacting us first to discuss.

Your client can donate the following to a donor-advised fund.

• Cash, via check, credit or debit card, wire transfer or ACH.
• Publicly traded securities, including mutual funds and bonds.
• Privately held businesses, including C-Corps, Limited Liability Companies, Limited Partnerships and S-Corps. Learn more about donating private business interests.
• Real estate, including personal residence, commercial property, farmland or undeveloped property. Learn more about real estate donations.
• Other alternative and complex assets, including, but not limited to:
  • Retirement plans
  • Negotiable instruments
  • Private equity
  • Cryptocurrency

Before contributing private business interests, real estate and other illiquid assets, contact Advisor Services to discuss our requirements and processes.

Contributions are normally posted within seven to ten business days of receipt, and they are reflected as of the date the deposit is received. Gifts of complex assets may take longer to show in the fund balance.

If we are not notified of a contribution ahead of time or if the contribution does not include the six-digit fund ID, it may be delayed.

Written acknowledgments used to substantiate your clients’ charitable contributions are available in Greater Horizons’ portal. As the fund’s investment manager, you will receive a login to view the donor-advised fund activity in the portal.

We must receive assets by December 31 in order for your clients to qualify for a tax deduction for the calendar year. Because of the increase in volume in November and December, we recommend initiating contributions early.

• Stocks and other securities can take up to two weeks to process, so we suggest initiating the contribution in early December.
• Mutual funds may take up to six weeks to process, so we recommend initiating requests in mid-November.
• Checks must be postmarked on or before December 31.
• For transfers via wire or ACH, we recommend initiating transfers before December 27.
• Credit or debit card contributions must be completed on or before December 31.

Please consult Greater Horizons’ year-end contribution guidelines for more details.

While Greater Horizons does not sponsor or assist with fundraising efforts, your client may solicit donations for their fund. Please consult our Fundraising Guidelines for more information.

The easiest way to request grants from a donor-advised fund is through Greater Horizons’ portal. In most cases, your client will request grants via Greater Horizons’ portal. As the fund’s investment manager, your client may permit you to submit grant requests on their behalf.

To request a grant, we will need to know:

• Name, city and state of the grant recipient
• Amount
• Purpose of the grant (if not known, will default to “area of greatest need”)
• If the fund name will be included with the grant payment
• If the donor’s name and contact information will be included with the grant payment

Please note, grants are not paid directly from the donor-advised fund’s investment account. Greater Horizons will process grant payments from the fund’s liquidity account, and a representative from Greater Horizons will contact you when it’s time to move cash to the liquidity account.

Grants from donor-advised funds must be made to 501(c)(3) public charities, including governmental, educational and religious institutions. Greater Horizons will exercise due diligence to make sure grants from your client’s fund are given to organizations that have met 501(c)(3) IRS requirements.

For more specific information about grants for events, memberships, scholarships, mission trips, races, athletic funds, NIL collectives, pledges and more, please review our Grant Guidelines.

You can log in to Greater Horizons’ portal to see all donor-advised fund activity, including contributions and grants. The “Requests” tab in the portal will display the status of all grant requests.

As the donor-advised fund’s investment manager, you will receive a login to access Greater Horizons’ portal, where you can view your client’s fund. In some cases, you may be able to submit grant requests on your client’s behalf. If your team members also need access to the account, we can provide additional logins with your client’s permission. Investment details displayed in the portal are limited, but you can view contribution and grant history and generate fund statements.

Greater Horizons reconciles all financial advisor managed accounts once a month. During the reconciliation process, the Greater Horizons team updates the fund balance to the previous month-end balance.

The investment account balance will remain static for the month. However, as contributions and grants are processed, the donor-advised fund’s balance will reflect changes due to assets coming or leaving the fund.

To generate a fund statement, log in to Greater Horizons’ portal and select the relevant fund. Click the “Statements” tab to view a monthly, quarterly or year-to-date statement.

Greater Horizons’ philanthropic advisors are available to help clients with donor-advised funds by providing guidance, research and legacy planning. Many clients choose to engage philanthropic advisors in family meetings, as advisors are trained and professionally certified to navigate potentially difficult conversations across multiple generations. Learn more about philanthropic advising services.