Donor First (DFX): Enhancing Transparency & Engagement for
Donor-Advised Funds
Ren Inc. | UX Research Lead & Designer
February 2025 - December 2025 • Capstone Project
Problem
Donor-advised funds (DAFs) serve 3 different user groups: financial advisors, charities, and donors. Donors engage with DAF platforms the least of the user groups. Ren Inc. asked us to explore donors’ interests and motivations with the goal of designing features to boost this groups’ engagement with the Donor-First (DFX) platform.
Goal
Conduct user research to understand the motivations and needs of the user groups of Ren’s Donor-First (DFX) platform, particularly donors. Use this research to inform the design of features that will help boost donors’ engagement with their donor-advised funds without disrupting the workflows of charities and financial advisors.
Tools:
Figma
Google Scholar
Miro
Zoom
Methods:
User Interviews
Competitive Analysis
Contextual Inquiry
Affinity Mapping
Literature Review
System Usability Scale (SUS)
A/B Testing
Information Architecture
Prototyping
Project Impact
Delivered a fully fleshed-out user experience that will serve as the reference point for donor engagement as a top-priority in 2026
Designed a unique donor experience that none of Ren’s competitors have implemented solutions for, setting them apart
Received a final SUS score of 87.5 in user testing indicating our product is both desirable and easy to use for donors
Eased the challenges of integrating the new feature by delivering design concepts that connect it to rest of the donation ecosystem
Project Deep Dive
Background
Ren Inc. is a leading provider of philanthropic technology and managed services in North America. The company focuses on enhancing philanthropic impact by providing expertise, technology, and scalable solutions for charitable giving.
140+
institutions, including nonprofits, universities, and financial firms. supported by Ren Inc.'s DAF platform
$175B+
in charitable assets managed by Ren, with $50B+ in donations through donor-advised funds, charitable trusts, and private foundations.
~50%
of all U.S. DAF assets use Ren technology for management and donations.
Their primary focus is on their platform that facilitates donor-advised funds, the Donor First platform, or DFX for short.
Donor-advised funds (DAFs) are accounts sponsored by a public charity where contributed assets can grow in value, tax-free. As the assets generate value, the interest and principal are used as funds to be granted out to chosen charities. The donor receives immediate tax benefits for each contribution.
5 types of assets can be contributed to DAFs:
Cash &
Cash Equivalents
Publicly Traded Securities &
Mutual Fund Shares
Restricted Stocks
Real Estate &
Business Equity
Cryptocurrency
Design Brief
My team's work with Ren Inc. was part of my Master's Capstone Project, spanning two semesters and serving as the final project of my HCI Master's program. We decided to pursue this collaboration out of passion for philanthropy and a desire to do meaningful work in the fintech space.
Ren revealed to us an interest in exploring the idea of "closing the loop" for donations made by DAF donors. Through their own research, they discovered an opportunity to expand their Donor First platform by keeping donors connected to their philanthropic efforts, not with numbers, but with stories. This interest gave us a starting point for our research.
Ren's Hypothesis:
If donors had a better idea of where their money was going once released to the charity and more options for engagement, it would boost their interest and motivation to be more involved with the platform.
Research Approach
This gave us a starting point for diving into the research, challenging us to balance learning about the targeted area of interest, while still digging into the general painpoints of donors. We honed in on the following topics:
Donor interest in impact tracking the funds granted from their DAFs
Donor preferences for communication and updates from charities i.e., methods and frequency
Charities' desires and concerns for communication and impact tracking with donors
We set our primary focus on the donors, the group we would be designing for. We also had a secondary focus on the charities because any features we implement to boost donor visibility into their donations, we also have to design for the charities to provide the communication.
Research Questions
After establishing the research approach, we began thinking about research questions that would be general enough to learn about our problem space, while also providing us with some pointed insights about communication and transparency, without leading participants. Thus, the following research questions served as the backbone of our research:
For donors:
In particular, why do donors open donor-advised funds?
What desires or needs do donor-advised funds fulfill for donors, and where are they lacking?
For charities:
Are there any unique aspects of donor-advised funds that make them particularly beneficial or frustrating to receive donations from?
How does the experience of stewardship with donor-advised fund donors differ from other donors?
Research Plan
Our team conducted thorough primary and secondary research for this project. We wanted to ensure that we had a strong understanding of the subject matter so that we could maximize value from our interviews.
Literature Review
Reviewed existing literature on donor-advised funds and philanthropy, allowing us to understand the function and context of the giving vehicle we were designing for
Competitive Analysis
Researched a wide variety of competitors, including 4 direct competitors, 3 indirect competitors, and 2 companies innovating in the philanthropy space
Expert & Stakeholder Interviews
Discussed our project with a department chair at the Lilly School of Philanthropy to gather more background on the charity perspective, and with stakeholders at Ren to define project success
User Interviews
Interviewed 6 financial advisors who work with donors to manage their DAF and 6 charities who accept DAF funds to understand the varied motivations and respective experiences donors and charities have with DAFs
Secondary Research Results
The secondary research we conducted significantly enhanced our understanding of the market and the problem space. We were able to gather major findings at each stage that made us much more informed in conducting our primary research. Some of our major takeaways from this phase included:
Charities
Charities have highly variable capacity for donor communication, requiring stewardship solutions that are flexible and non-burdensome.
Donors
DAF donors value control over their engagement with charities, but their expectations vary widely based on motivation, net worth, and desired level of involvement.
Strategy
There's an opportunity to differentiate Ren by prioritizing donor experience, existing solutions either treat DAFs as an add-on or emphasize donor engagement without DAF functionality.
Primary User Research Design & Results
Going into the primary research phase, we were immediately hit with a hurdle: "How can we get permission to conduct research on donors?" Naturally, donors can be hard to access for numerous reasons:
Some donors donate anonymously, making them disinterested in being contacted by parties outside of their financial management teams
Financial advisors are hesitant to pass along their donor contacts out of concern for bothering them, since they are already very busy people
There is no repository of people who make donations via donor-advised funds.
Thus, we knew we would have to find ways to learn about DAF donors, even if we couldn't directly target them. This led to us recruiting financial advisors since 1 financial advisor could offer insights into the behavior of many donors.
Study Design
Our study consisted of interviews completed with 2 user groups: financial advisors and charity representatives. The groups were not offered incentives to participate.
6 Charity Representatives
Ranging in roles from gift managers, directors of donor outreach, and philanthropy officers. We strategically targeted a variety of charities, including 2 nationwide, 1 statewide, and 2 citywide.
6 Financial Advisors
We recruited financial advisors from the NAPFA (National Association of Personal Financial Advisors) database, filtering for advisors who specialize in charitable giving work.
Rationale
We used interviews to support both discovery and validation. While our partner brought initial hypotheses around donor engagement and transparency, interviews allowed us to validate those assumptions and uncover broader donor needs if misalignment emerged. Open-ended questioning gave us the flexibility to probe participants’ lived experiences and understand not just whether transparency mattered, but why.
Findings
While both sides offered different perspectives on the themes, it was shocking to us how much the groups stated similar sentiments. It also surprised us how much both user groups were aware of the needs of the other.
Finding: Impact Matters, but Effort Must Stay Low
Donors and charities expressed remarkably similar needs: both value transparency and impact visibility, but are cautious about overwhelming the other side with excessive communication.
Recommendation:
Design communication tools that balance visibility with restraint, allowing impact updates to be shared without increasing administrative burden for charities or notification fatigue for donors.
Must offer more options for communication preferences than the current black-and-white anonymous or not setting.
Enable lightweight impact storytelling, such as project-level updates or summaries, rather than granular donation tracking.
Finding: Acknowledgement Drives Donor Satisfaction
Donors consistently valued being acknowledged. Personalized, direct communication from charities made donors feel appreciated and informed.
Recommendation:
Support acknowledgment features that allow charities to thank donors and share updates in a simple, repeatable way that fits into existing workflows.
Features must be flexible and match patterns that are familiar, requiring little onboarding to adopt
Finding: Anonymity Is Widely Misunderstood
Contrary to assumptions, very few DAF donors were anonymous. Charities and financial advisors report donors being confused about what anonymity actually meant often assuming it applied to charities when it only applied publicly.
Recommendation:
Clarify anonymity options through clearer language and controls, allowing donors to choose visibility levels and build the platform to manage communication for charities in line with the chosen donor preferences
The platform must minimize the effort required by charities to perform outreach to their DAF donors and minimize scenarios of unwanted communication
Problem Statement
With the results of our research in mind, we submitted 3 sets of problem statements, each containing a problem statement for the donor side and the charity side of the problem. These problem statements were designed with targeted research data from the user perspective, making it easier to communicate the user needs back to the stakeholders. It also allowed us to discuss findings that pertained to aspects of the user experience that our initial problem space did not address. Discussing these problem statements helped us identify the best path forward for the design and to keep everyone on the same page. The problem statements and their themes were as follows:
Ideation & Recommendations
Following a discussion with Ren Inc., we've decided to pursue the following problem statement:
“As a donor,
When I’ve made my charitable contributions for the year,
I want to keep up with the donations I gave to charities, maintaining a connection,
So I can feel a greater sense of involvement from the impact my dollar has made,
But the current process offers little control or access to track if my donation was received, let alone creating a connection with my chosen charities,
Resulting in frustration from the all or nothing approach to communication with charities, creating a disconnect.”
This problem statement is critical because it sums up the user experience by reminding us who we are designing for, what they want and why, how the current experience misses the mark, and what that means for the user.
Ideation
To ideate on the recommendations we would be making and carrying out in the design phase of the project, my team met in person to discuss our ideas and work through solutions. Our first activity to do this was completing a round of Crazy 8's. From here, we closed in on ideas that we felt were both the most relevant to the problem statement, as well as occurred the most among team members. In doing so, we were able to stay focused on the problem statement and see where we all agreed the most valuable improvements could occur. From here, we took it to the whiteboard and started messily sketching and working through the main ideas we honed in on.
Recommendations
As we started working through the ideas as a team, we came up with 3 solutions we wanted to recommend to Ren Inc. for them to choose from that we could carry into the design phase of the project. This allowed us to move forward with a more co-design mindset, increase their engagement with the project, and ensure we were all aligned in our vision for what the final product could look like.
Next Steps: Design Phase
With the semester concluding, we wrapped up and handed over our recommended next steps for Ren Inc. to consider. Since we would be parting until the Fall, we wanted to ensure we were in a solid place to pick back up once we returned in August. It also gave their team time to consider the solutions we proposed, and keep them in the back of their minds as business decisions continued over the summer. This ensured that, even if shifts in priorities occurred, we simultaneously weren't ahead of ourselves while also giving a vague idea of the paths we may want to take. Similarly to how we did with the problem statements, we also prompted the team to consider how we could narrow in on a single idea, even if that meant taking pieces from one concept and combining them with a piece of another concept. This ensured that we communicated flexibility, while still having a vision for the project's direction.