Altruist is advancing its product roadmap with a timely launch for Giving Season: a new donor-advised funds program open to the financial advisors who custody with it.
According to an announcement from the fast-growing RIA custodian on Tuesday, advisors can now set up, invest and oversee clients' charitable accounts on the same platform that holds the rest of a client household's assets.
Crucially, the Los Angeles-based wealth technology and custody firm said it is dropping the minimums that typically keep smaller donors out. There is no threshold to open an account, maintain a balance or make a grant, and annual fees begin at 50 basis points, in contrast to the 60 to 65 basis points charged by most other donor-advised fund sponsors, according to Altruist.
The move brings one more piece of client planning onto Altruist's platform. It comes as stock gifts, including shares of private technology companies, are swelling balances at competing charitable platforms.
A donor-advised fund, or DAF, is a charitable account held by a sponsoring public charity. Donors generally claim a tax deduction when they contribute. They then recommend grants to charities over months or years while the money stays invested.
Rather than being the legal sponsor, Altruist disclosed on its announcement that Endaoment, a 501(c)(3) public charity, will own the assets and is the customer of record on each account. Contributions can't be reversed, and Endaoment must approve grant and investment recommendations. The platform fee is based on assets and billed monthly.
Setting up an advisor-managed DAF has often meant a separate portal, another login and a slow onboarding process. With the new capability, Altruist's platform lets advisors move an existing fund over in two steps, contribute cash or appreciated securities, and see the DAF next to a client's other holdings.
Many sponsors also limit DAF assets to a short list of pools. In contrast, Altruist said it will let advisors put DAF money into any model on its marketplace, including custom portfolios and the personalized indexing strategies it rolled out in March.
Beyond that, clients can recommend grants themselves, from the web or the mobile app. They can choose among more than 1.8 million eligible charities without sending the request through their advisor.
"Giving is one of the most personal things a client does with their advisor. We want to support advisors and their clients through that process by making donor advised funds easy to navigate and access," said Jason Wenk, Altruist's founder and chief executive.
Read more: Donor-advised fund: Friend or foe?
The DAF rollout caps a crowded stretch for the custodian. In June, Altruist opened an alternatives marketplace to independent advisors' clients. It included private equity, real estate and infrastructure strategies from Blackstone, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, KKR and Pantheon, along with margin, options and faster money movement.
Late last month, the firm began letting advisors subscribe clients to pre-IPO deals through special purpose vehicles.
Amid Altruist's breathless 2026 platform buildout, Vanguard announced plans to acquire the custodian in late August, a deal that's expected to close within the year.
Altruist is venturing into DAFs as rival platforms are reporting record activity. Daffy, a DAF platform based in Los Altos, Calif., said Sept. 30 that its charitable assets had passed $2 billion, five years to the day after its public launch. It began 2026 with more than $720 million, up from $334 million at the end of 2024.
Stock accounts for most of that growth. Through August, Daffy members contributed more than $675 million in securities, more than double the 2025 total. Private and restricted shares made up over $600 million of that, four times last year's figure.
"The growth we're seeing in public and private stock contributions shows that more people are moving beyond simply giving reactively with cash and instead setting aside assets proactively for charity," said Adam Nash, Daffy's co-founder and chief executive, in a release touting the company's milestone achievement.
At DAFgiving360, formerly Schwab Charitable, donors granted more than $10 billion to charities in the fiscal year ended June 2026, up 22%. Non-cash assets, including pre- and post-IPO shares, made up 73% of contributed dollars.
"Whether driven by market appreciation, concentrated stock positions, business ownership, or liquidity events, many investors today hold appreciated assets that can be used to support charitable goals in a highly tax-efficient way," DAFGiving360 President Julie Sunwoo said in July. "For advisors, this presents an opportunity to deepen client relationships by helping clients achieve both philanthropic and financial objectives."
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