Hey Sam! I have a DAF-related question I think is probably pretty silly, And Yet.
I have several monthly donations set up with Charityvest, and several others set up directly with my credit card that predate the DAF. I'd like to have everything come out of the DAF to simplify my records -- I do itemize them on my taxes, so keeping track is important. But is it really okay to call up these small nonprofits to tell them "hey cancel my donations in your system, I want to make things more complicated for you so it's more convenient for me"??
Not silly at all! Although I doubt you're making it more complicated for them. It basically just means they're getting the money from a third party they don't pay for instead of one they do (the credit card processor that charges your card each month). They deal with changes and cancellations all the time, and if in future your changes and cancellations are going through Charityvest, then that frees up their staff who don't have to deal with that.
When I set up my DAF via Charityvest, I did have several monthly donations I was making. For me, the process was pretty simple -- I went to the donation page, found the "If you'd like to change your monthly donation, contact us" link, and reached out via email.
I had a boilerplate letter that gave my name and the address they should have on file, then said, "I'd like to cancel my recurring monthly donation through your website. I'm moving the donation to be administered by Charityvest; I'll still be giving on a monthly basis, but the gift will come through my DAF." If you have a name for it, tell them "The gifts will be attached to [name of DAF]; please feel free to note this in my record." Then I said thanks for all the work they do, and that as soon as they confirmed the donation was cancelled, I'd put the new donation into process. Got zero pushback, got several nice comments thanking me for being a donor. :) You can modify that into bullet points for a phone call pretty easily.
You do have to keep an eye on them because sometimes the cancellation doesn't go through -- just check your bank around the time the donations normally get made. I had one of the four I was giving to at the time fail to cancel, but when I reached out to ask them to fix it, they cancelled it promptly and offered to refund the donation (I said don't bother, it wasn't a huge donation to start with).
The only downside, to them, is that they no longer list you as a recurring donor on the back end, but that's extremely minor in the grand scheme of things, and anyone looking at your record will see your monthly gifts and that they're coming from a DAF and make the rational assumption that you're just giving monthly through a different vehicle.
Good luck! And thank you for giving :)
