Atlanta Jewish Foundation Giving Insight
Written by Ghila Sanders, VP of Foundation
October 13, 2026
When I help families grow their philanthropy, especially around this time of year, I often recommend one game-changing strategy.
But, let’s put a pin in that for a moment.
In order for a donor’s giving to grow and make a long-term impact in the community, we must first build a strong foundation. Without it, giving might feel impersonal, complicated, and eventually – irrelevant.
These are five practical steps I like to start with to make our fundholders’ giving more personal, intentional, and effective:
- Begin with your personal story. Consider why philanthropy matters to you and which experiences and values have shaped the way you give.
- Learn what kind of giver you are. Ask yourself what motivates you, what makes giving satisfying, and what inspires you to keep giving. Do you prefer to pair financial support with volunteering? Are you driven by data and measurable impact? Do you concentrate your giving on a few causes, or do you often respond to requests from friends and family?
- Define your philanthropic goals. Are you helping an organization meet today’s needs, strengthening it for the next decade, or investing in its future for generations to come? Are you addressing a challenge that requires sustained, collective effort? Your answers will help determine the kind of commitment that can make the greatest difference.
- Identify the nonprofits you want to support. Consider the services you value, the experiences that enrich your life, the support you or your family have relied on, and the challenges in our community that you want to help change.
- Bring it all together. Create a strategy and choose the specific giving vehicle that best serves your goals. A Donor Advised Fund (DAF) and an Endowment are both extremely effective tools that can strengthen the same cause – but in very different ways.
Once you know why you give, which organizations align with your values, and which vehicle best serves your goals, you are ready for my #1 recommendation:
Make a multi-year commitment.
Many donors opt for the “one year at a time” approach, even if they believe in the mission of an organization and support it time and time again.
But for you as a donor, a multi-year gift can create focus and encourage deeper engagement. It gives you time to see how an organization uses your support, assess the progress it is making, and understand the impact of your giving over more than a single year. A multi-year gift extends your commitment beyond the present while preserving the flexibility to reassess and adjust as circumstances change.
For the nonprofit receiving your support, a multi-year commitment provides critical financial predictability. That stability allows teams to devote more time to their mission, plan programs with more confidence, and build a relationship with you that is centered on shared goals rather than repeated fundraising requests.
Multi-year gifts give organizations something they rarely have enough of: time to plan for the long term. When they know what they can count on, they can develop multi-year programs, scale initiatives that are working, measure outcomes over a meaningful period of time, reduce staff burnout, anticipate future needs more accurately, and build the capacity to meet them.
The good news is that acting on this strategy can be very simple: you can set up a multi-year gift through your Donor Advised Fund portal in less than a minute.
As you make your charitable decisions in the final months of the year, choose one organization you trust and consider turning your annual gift into a multi-year commitment. It is a simple step that can make your giving more focused, effective, and rewarding.
If you would like assistance choosing where to begin, setting up a multi-year gift, or simply talking through your giving strategy, please reach out to me or anyone on the Atlanta Jewish Foundation team. We would be honored to help.
