Two regulatory developments shaped 2024 in the planned-giving and donor-advised-fund space. The first was a set of proposed Treasury regulations governing donor-advised funds, published for public comment in late 2023 and the subject of extensive sector commentary throughout 2024. The second was the implementation of SECURE 2.0’s charitable provisions, several of which became operative for the first time in tax year 2024.
The proposed DAF regulations
The Treasury proposal addressed several long-standing ambiguities in the statutory framework that had governed DAFs since the Pension Protection Act of 2006. Among the proposed clarifications: a clearer definition of what constitutes a "donor-advised fund" subject to the special rules, a tightened definition of who counts as a "donor advisor" with effective control over distributions, restrictions on certain payments from DAFs to entities affiliated with donors or their families, and clarification of the rules around transfers between DAFs at different sponsoring organizations.
None of the proposals would have imposed a payout schedule on DAFs — the policy proposal that critics of the form had most consistently advocated. The regulatory authority to impose such a schedule was contested; the proposed rules instead worked within the existing statutory framework and addressed implementation questions rather than fundamental policy.
Sector response to the proposal was sharply divided. Sponsoring organizations — the community foundations and commercial DAF providers that operate the accounts — broadly supported the clarification of definitional questions while opposing several specific provisions that would have constrained ordinary administrative practice. Reform advocates supported the proposal as a starting point while criticizing its silence on the payout question.
Through the comment period, more than four thousand individual and institutional comments were filed. Final regulations had not been issued by the end of the year, and the regulatory process was expected to extend into 2025 or beyond.
SECURE 2.0’s charitable provisions
The SECURE 2.0 Act, enacted at the end of 2022, contained several provisions affecting charitable distributions from individual retirement accounts that took effect in stages through 2024. The qualified charitable distribution annual limit, previously fixed at $100,000, was indexed for inflation beginning in 2024 and rose to $105,000 for the year. Married couples could each take advantage of the limit, allowing aggregate IRA-charitable distribution of $210,000 per couple.
More significantly, SECURE 2.0 created a new one-time election allowing IRA holders to fund a charitable remainder trust or charitable gift annuity through a qualified charitable distribution, up to $50,000 (also indexed for inflation). This provision was structurally novel: it permitted, for the first time, the use of IRA assets to fund a split-interest gift — one in which the donor or named beneficiaries receive an income stream and the charity receives the remainder.
Planned-giving offices spent much of 2024 educating both staff and donors on the new option. Uptake was modest in the first year — the structural complexity of charitable remainder trusts is a barrier — but several large universities and hospital systems reported a meaningful number of inquiries and a smaller number of completed transactions.
The structural picture
Taken together, the year’s regulatory developments reinforced a longer trend: the most significant legal evolution in American charitable giving was happening through the planned-giving and asset-transfer side of the field rather than through annual cash giving. The federal incentive to give through cash contributions had been narrowing since 2018; the federal incentive to give through retirement assets, appreciated securities, and split-interest vehicles continued to expand. The donor population using these tools was, by definition, concentrated at the top of the wealth distribution.