Should I Gift Anonymously?

Tim, good afternoon.

Hey, George. How are you doing?

Very well. How you doing?

Doing great. I'm happy to be part of this.

Good. Good. I appreciate you taking some time today to kind of let our clients in on a little bit more about your company. And for our crowd listening at home, I'm joined today by Tim Sanders. He's the owner and proprietor of Silent Donor, which is a great platform for people that are charitably minded, who are looking to give to charities, but value their privacy, and they really want to make that at the top of their list when it comes to their charitable gifts. And in the spirit of transparency, I know we're going to focus a lot on anonymity today.

Tim is actually the older brother of a very dear friend of mine, Nick, who loves to tell people that when we were 7 years old, he was the first one to ever beat me in a foot race. And I don't think I ever beat him in a foot race after that point in time. But I bring up that that story as a little bit of context because I when I ran into Tim a couple years ago, I thought it was, you know, maybe a little bit good time for payback.

And, you know, puffing out my chest, start talking about my own small business. Tim laid on me that he runs the world's largest anonymous donation platform. So, I think, you know, with that background, Tim, I just would like to thank you and all the members of your family for continually and consistently destroying my self-confidence, but I couldn't be happier with the amount of success you've had with your company thus far, and I really appreciate you joining me today.

Excellent intro, George. No. Thank you.

I think it'll be very unique of all the podcasts that that you'll be on. I've got that familial connection. So, but you know, speaking of that that wedding we were at, it was mutual friend of ours and, was really the first time I got a little bit more background on your company and I normally don't go a lot into the backstory of the people that I have on these podcasts because I like to get right to, hey, how does this benefit our clients and what financial value or, you know, moral value can they gain out of, you know, a different service that they haven't been using before.

But I did find kind of your backstory on how your company came to be and it was kind of driven through some experiences I think you had through work and just personal experiences. So I was wondering if maybe we could just start there and if you wouldn't mind giving the people at home a little bit of background on you know how you went down this path.

Yeah, I think that's a good place to start. Just beginning with my work history and then I'll kind of move into the three main reasons why I thought a platform like this might be useful for some donors out in the world. So originally I started my career I worked overseas for a private company where I dealt with a lot of people in the charitable aid sector in primarily in the Middle East and West Asia. I did that for a few years. I came back to the Chicago area where I'm from and I worked at an innovation management consulting firm where I helped companies come up with new products and new services and then I worked in philanthropic management consulting as well where I helped advise you know some of the largest fundraising institutions in the US and their donors just on anything related to philanthropy and the programs that they run.

But there were three issues I noticed in the industry in general that I thought were pro like problems or areas of frustration for certain donors and certainly for myself. And the first one was I had given a donation and I was just I didn't really like the fact that after I donated I started getting a ton of mail sent to my house and a bunch of emails sent to my email list and I just was kind of annoyed by it especially since I donated online and I didn't you know choose to donate in the mail in the first place.

And then I realized that there was when I did more research into it there's like a Better Business Bureau had a whole page dedicated to helping people to get off of those email lists. So I knew it was a frustration wider than me just having it on my own. The second major pillar why I created it was I went to Providence Catholic High School and I knew that there were a lot of religious donors especially in the Catholic and Christian faiths. But then I also learned followers of Islam and Judaism as well have they all preach about the virtues of giving anonymously and how it's better to give without seeking recognition and things.

And religious giving to this day remains the largest kind of slice of the pie chart in terms of where people choose to donate in the US. And so I knew that those donors might be interested in a platform like this. And then finally there was wealthy donors, you know, people who give large public donations and they would receive a lot of basically they would be inundated with requests from other nonprofits knocking on their door after they gave the large public gift kind of saying you know also you should fund what we're doing and not had to have a lot of unwanted conversations off the back of that.

And you know there just wasn't a method or a route that a lot of wealthy donors were choosing to give. And then finally, just the last little aside is that some people do face like backlash off where they choose to donate. And I just thought that if there was an easy or uncomplicated way for people to send anonymous donations, because there wasn't at the time, I thought if I created a way to make it easy and uncomplicated, like regardless of anybody's sophistication in finance or in philanthropy in general, then more people might be interested in sending donations to charity if they could give, you know, more in line with their level of comfort in terms of their privacy.

And so that's why I launched Silent Donor. We registered at the end of 2019 and now, you know, a few years later, we have offices here in the US and in Europe and we've helped thousands of donors send millions of dollars to charity all over the world so far.

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And I know you mentioned you have a domestic presence and an international presence and in large part you've been partnering with a lot of organizations, right? That's been part of your kind of get the word out campaign. Just kind of getting connected with them. You know, you're just happy that people are giving. I know. But it kind of provides them with a new outlet to give in a way that's been even if it's less accessible to them, it's been less promoted to them, I feel like.

Yeah, that's a great point. And yeah, I forgot to mention so in addition to working with individual donors and families and corporations, anyone that wants to send an anonymous, we also partner with charities and nonprofit organizations all over the world so that they can offer a simple and easy way for anybody to accept or to anybody to give them an anonymous donation. So they don't have the infrastructure or any means to accept anonymous donations currently. They can just use us for to allow for any donor to quickly and easily send them a private anonymous donation.

Yeah. Okay. And it's funny. I remember when we were talking at that wedding and you were kind of telling me these different reasons why people give a couple thoughts came to my mind of just experiences I had even been through similar to you. And I feel like sometimes when people start going down the topic of philanthropy, they think, well, we're talking about, you know, big- time implications here, but really it can be little everyday stuff. I remember one time I gave to the same high school.

It wasn't a big gift at all, but something to me was just I think I had wrote on the check anonymous and I'm just like, you know, I just don't want my name in the newsletter maybe because classmates I went to school with, they don't need to know what I'm gifting. And sure enough, I think that was just a little thing that was that was missed and I ended up seeing my name listed there. You know, you talk about wealthier individuals having, you know, I think enhanced maybe not need, but they value privacy more.

Had a client who was purchasing a home in another state and they needed an addestation letter kind of for us attesting of how much they had in their portfolio and they were really concerned about us just limiting what we listed there to the amount they were going to pay for the home. And that was eye opening to me was that, you know, they didn't want the seller to know how much money they have. So, I feel like the higher you go up that wealth spectrum, the more people value their privacy.

But I think even outside of those little things, I think there's a story too you were telling me about like there are some various serious, you know, implications. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind maybe hit on one or two of those stories. We were talking about that person that went overseas and just about how this is it can be a very serious issue outside of the everyday annoyances people deal with. Yeah, we know we it's kind of a continuum of people that use sound donor.

It's everyone from I don't want to get an email anymore or I want to be more private all the way to actually protecting people's physical safety. And one example that comes to mind is there's a US-based 501c3 organization called Razom and they help send aid to Ukraine. And a donor who's a dual US and Russ Russian citizen, she donated $51 to Razom and a public donation. And then she went to Russia to visit for her grandma. Somehow, since it was a public donation, they found out who she was.

They arrested her and they charged her with treason and they sentenced her to 12 years in a Russian prison colony. She sent she was just recently freed in a in a prisoner swap. But the fact remains is that, you know, she sent a $51 innocuous donation to a US-based company, went overseas, and was and about a month after that story was, you know, international, we had partnered with Razom so that anyone going forward can send them an anonymous donation and not have to worry about their physical safety as a result of where they're choosing to give.

And the same is true still like we partner with the Malala fund as well. And Malala has the famous backstory of she was shot by the Taliban for championing education for women and girls in that part of the world. And so there are real consequences sometimes for people when they're choosing to donate to whatever cause. They really fear that they'll have they'll face reprisals or retribution from people in positions of power. And it's a wellfounded fear at this point. There's countless examples. And so we're proud to also serve donors like that.

It wasn't really even something I had anticipated when I started the platform. It just had, you know, kind of evolved over time as more and more people found out about Silent Donor and as we grew and more people found out about what we did. But yeah, it's just from the stakes are just higher for some of those donors and we're happy to serve them the same way that we serve the tiny donor sending $50 to their community foundation or something. But George, you touched on an interesting thing that I wanted to bring up as well, which is what I call the checkbox misconception on the donation forms when people send out donations.

So, if you're donating, especially online, there's usually like a little check box that says, you know, click here to make your donation anonymous. But, I just want people to know that you are not going to be anonymous at all to that charity organization whatsoever. They're still going to get your name and your email and your address. And so we get donors all the time that are like, you know, I clicked the anonymous box, but I'm still getting all sorts of emails and mail off the back of my so-called anonymous donation.

And so the experience of the donor doesn't match with what they thought it would be giving anonymously. So then they turn to us to do all their future giving. So when you check that little box, you're not actually anonymous at all. It's just kind of a way that that organization might agree to not list you on a an annual report or something, but that's really the only anonymity that you're going to get. All of your information is seen by whoever is at that organization. I just wanted to make that clear.

Yeah. No. It's a good point. And I'm guessing there's kind of a rippling effect for people that, you know, they check that box, I think they're anonymous, but then they are getting hit up by this charity frequently. Another experience I had was, you know, made a small gift to again to a charity last December and I think by March Id received like 30 emails from that charity and I think I'd email twice, hey, can you unsubscribe me that didn't go through and then even if you get unsubscribed sometimes you're getting things in the mail then.

So, it's like it's not as easy once you go down that road of they know who you are getting off of their list. Not that it's a bad thing that they're reaching out to you, but I think what went along with that is just that consistent added pressure to give more. I think can almost be a turnoff to some people because they've given to this organization, they like them, but now they feel like they're being pestered by them. So, I feel like it's nice when you can get ahead of the ball game, especially when it's a misconception that, well, if I just check this box, then I'm not going to be bothered all that often. So, I'm not sure if you feel the same or you've seen that with donors knowing the landscape better than I do.

Well, sure. It's just true, too, that more people now more than ever are just doing different things to protect their privacy online in a way that they weren't worried about say even 10 years ago. So, there's all sorts of people worried about who has access to their data. You know, the term big data and the companies that are, you know, big data companies mining their data against their will more or less. So people just want to have more control over who has access to their personal information now on the web more than they ever have.

And so part of the thesis of silent owner is with all the movement going towards people all these where we're seeing people trying to protect their privacy more and more as it relates to their online activity, it also will make sense that they're going to choose to give to charity in a way that it protects their privacy, too. So, we're definitely seeing more people just want to have that protection and not have their data be just given to anybody because commonly, and in your experience speaks to this too, when you give to a nonprofit, it's not uncommon for the nonprofit to share access to their email list or sell access to their email list.

So, now you're getting emails from organizations that you never even expressed an interest in supporting. And that just goes back to the, you know, the kind of the fundamental disagreement that a lot of people have with I signed up to you. I gave you my information and now you're going and giving it to other people and I don't like that. And so we are just a, you know, a channel through which people can give more in line with their privacy by keeping their personal information private to themselves.

And obviously we don't give out or disseminate personal information to anybody at any time. Mhm. I know it speaking of those misconceptions like that checkbox is a great example. Another thing you mentioned to me it's important for an organization like yours to stay above the fray of politics. And I feel like that might be another misconception that people come up with which is hey you know by using the silent window or they're partnering with all these funds all over the world. Does that mean they're backing you know certain agendas that are being pushed by you know whether it's US government or a different government overseas?

Can you kind of speak to that and how your organization approaches that kind of sensitive area? Yeah, this is great. Yeah, thanks for this question. Because we do get this fairly often from people. We do not accept political donations of any kind. So, it's not federal, state, or local donations. And this is, you know, in accordance with US law. You're not allowed to send a political donation on behalf of somebody else. Which I think is the lawful reason, and we don't even touch. So, any political donations at all, you can't give through silent owner.

That also includes like 501c4 organizations that are like elections based or you know have any dealing with elected officials. You can't give to packs. You can't give to super PACs here in the US for instance either. Yeah and so we are only existing for charitable gifts that want to go to charities or nonprofits. And also crowdfunding donations which is something that's a little bit different and interesting. Pretty much everyone has had experience with this where you know somebody that sets up a GoFundMe to help fund some cause for your friend or your neighbor.

And it might be the case that it could be awkward for you to send financial assistance to your friend or your neighbor. And so a lot of people have been using our platform to anonymously donate to those crowdfunding campaigns. Which is great. But we do also want to note while we're happy to do that and it is a big part of our business those are not taxdeductible for donors since you know if you're just giving to your neighbor down the road because they broke their leg or something it wouldn't be taxdeductible the way that it is to give to a charity.

So we just ask that people keep that in mind. Of course we have it written on our website but just so people are aware. There are basically different mechanisms through which you can give on silent donor. The most popular one is to give to charities and nonprofits, but then there's a clearly delineated one where you can give to any, you know, crowdfunding campaign anonymously to support people that might be in your life and you just want it to be a more private. Yeah. So, long story short, no politics. Thanks.

Yeah. Yeah. That crowdfunding topic is an interesting one because leads me to ask you know how you're approaching engaging you know all generations but I would particularly say like the millennial Gen Xers maybe that next generation of givers and I think I'd listen to another podcast you're on where you're speaking to some of these you know charities are a little bit outdated and how they're trying to approach gifters and reaching through out to them through physical mail and so do you see that shift happening and is that your company that's how you're approaching it is hey we're trying to be as user friendly as we can by doing you know most everything online or through like a crowdfunding type platform and giving them these different options without having to you know pester them through some of the more traditional mediums.

Yeah, I fully agree. I think sometimes the industry takes a while for especially in philanthropy it's not the most innovative of industries and might take a while for them to catch up to people's proclivities now in 2025 which include if I'm an online donor and I'm giving an online donation it might make less sense for you to send me something in the mail to give and sometimes nonprofits think that there's like cross channeling they think that a donor that gives online might become one that gives through the mail but I just don't I think the majority of millennials and Gen Xers are giving through the mail.

Obviously, some people might be, and that's why they have the programs in place to begin with, but by and large, the shift is going away from those. And I think to your point, it's just driving more people to use Silent Donor, honestly, because they're just getting tired of receiving all this unwanted communications. And exactly like what you described, people have reached out to these charities and they said, you know, hey, can you please remove me from this list? And it's not as easy as it sounds because they continue to get donations.

We had a donor one time tell us a story where they said they gave a pretty large donation and they said the only basically ask I have for this donation is that you don't send me anything in the mail going forward. And the very next month she got like a big calendar and something else. Clearly they had not I don't know what mechanism was in place for her to get removed from the list but it didn't work. And so now that she exclusively gives through silent owner but it's little things like that where people's you know expectations as modern internet age users it's just not the same experience as it might have been you know say 20 years ago where people might have expected to give through the mail and now they do like rightly said they see it more as a nuisance.

So, I think as the landscape changes too, we're happy to partner with these charities and nonprofits to allow them to adapt with the times and accept anonymous donations from any donor because we partner with charities and nonprofits completely for free. And we also work with some wealth advisors and wealth advisory firms so that they just kind of as a value added service. So if they have a client that wants to, you know, accomplish their philanthropic giving privately, they can do so through us if it makes sense, you know, given their whatever other happenings are in their financial life. And we can talk more about that planning process, too.

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that story because again it just reminds me of a typical high net worth client and their personality traits and the way that they like to do business people with like $5 million or more. Typically their thought is listen I'm willing to pay a little bit more to meet you know the needs that I have and I do have some typically more enhanced needs than just the average individual. And you know that's an interesting story of somebody said I one ask one thing what's really important to them right so they expect you know kind of a little bit more of a white glove service when it comes to you know meeting their goals whether it's in tax planning estate planning or charitable giving that kind of brings me to I know I've taken a little bit to get here but I think it's important to think about the reasons why they might want to give anonymously because I think some people maybe haven't thought about it in the past or just thought about you know why you know they would ever want to consider that Another benefit that we haven't mentioned yet is there's a finan potential financial benefit for giving to charity.

And I know something that's very popular people read a lot about is you know people will use donor advised funds in order to get a tax benefit for gifting to charity and maybe I'll just pause. Let's start with that because you've got silent donor which is the platform but you also have a don your own donor advice fund that's affiliated with the platform. Would you mind just kind of going into that a little bit the relationship between those two? Sure. Yeah. So, Silent Donor is our main technology platform and then underneath it, we have underlying charitable funds in different jurisdictions around the world which make more sense to give certain gifts based on where you're trying to give a gift or based on where your tax residence is.

So, yeah, if you're if you're a US person or a US company and you'd like to give a taxdeductible fully anonymous donation, it's simple to do through our platform. But that donation will be funneled essentially through our US-based 501c3 donor advice fund that we have set up in order to shield and protect the privacy of our donors. So, just going through the process quickly of how it works. So, if you're a donor, you just fill out our donation form online. You write in the name of the charity or nonprofit that you'd like to send your donation to.

You could even copy and paste the website of the charity if you'd like. Our staff does the diligence to make sure that it is, you know, a reputable established 501c3 charity. Once you send your donations through, however you'd like to pay, you know, we offer credit card donations and transfer donations, a stock or cryptocurrency. After your donation comes in, you will get a tax deductible receipt from our US-based fund, our donor advised fund. So, you get a tax deduction in the name of our fund. It does not mention where ultimately you want it to go, but you get a tax deduction from our fund.

And then at the end of the month, our fund sends your donation to wherever you specified on our donation form, but it just comes as a donation from our fund. And it does not mention you or your personal information or there's no connection to you whatsoever, thus preserving your privacy and your anonymity. So, you get the tax deduction from our fund and you also get the impact that you want because we send your gift to the charity that you'd like. All without your personal information ever being exposed to any third party.

And we're happy also, especially in with bigger donations, we'll forward to you either our, you know, wire transfer information or we'll forward to you the donation receipt that we received from the organization just so you as a donor can have peace of mind that yes, you know, we actually did send your donation to the organization that you'd like for it to benefit because some people look, the internet is a wild place and they just want to have the validation that their gift went to go even though it is private and anonymous.

And we're more than happy to follow up with donors and basically submit to them the proof that we did indeed send the donation to where they want.

Yeah. Yeah. A couple of highlights there as a as a financial advisor. And again, this I think is not just specific to your donor advice fund. There's other donor advice funds that, you know, check some of these same boxes, but the ability to kind of coordinate with your accountant, get a good sense of, hey, how much you may want to gift in order to be able to itemize and get the tax benefit by using a donor adise fund. That's great. You mentioned the ability to gift stock.

That's also, I think, a great benefit for people that say, "I've got a lot of built-up gain in this stock. I don't have a lot of cash on hand. You know, is there multiple ways for me to be able to gift? You know, cryptocurrency that seems maybe a bit unique to your platform. I haven't heard of MA donor advised funds offering that, but my knowledge may be limited." but I think that ability to give stock is really great. And it's crucial. And so I think all those pieces coming together.

Oh, the third one that I was thinking of was the documentation which again is adviser and I think their accountant that's key because people do get audited from time to time especially when they're attesting that hey I'm taking a tax benefit for this gift that I gave to charity. So I know of some clients where we do some gifting a variety of different ways maybe to donor advised fund or just through a qualified charitable distribution you know direct from their IRA where they've had to chase down the charity to get that confirmation letter. So your platform kind of takes care of that on their behalf if I was hearing you right.

Yeah, that's correct. So we send donate the taxdeductible receipts to donors immediately as soon as we receive the gift. It depends. It could be a day or two depending on if the wire takes a day or two, but right when we receive the asset, we do send taxdeductible receipt right away. We also send at the conclusion of the year a summary of all of your charitable giving that you sent through Silent Donor. So you just have it nice and easy all in one place. And then so when it comes tax time and you're talking to people like George, you can go ahead and have all that on hand. Ready to make that discussion one that's very easy and simple.

Yeah, that is nice for people because I know of a lot of people that will give like monthly, you know, they don't want to do one big lump sum. They want to give throughout the year. So that summary that that is a nice feature of that. I wasn't aware of that. So I'm glad that you highlighted that. Just so people know, I'm assuming there's, you know, there's a cost for doing this and would you mind, you know, and if not, no problem. But kind of going over just in general your pricing, what does it cost for people to be able to do this in order to, you know, get that extra value for the anonymous gifting?

Sure. Yeah. So, we have a pretty simple pricing regime at the broadest we'll ever take of a donation. So, it's a percentage based fee. So, 5% is the highest our fee ever goes. So, if you send a $100 donation through our platform, we would send $95 to the charity of your choice completely anonymously. But we're happy to lower this fee for larger donations. And we've done that several times throughout our platform's history with larger gifts. So, if sometimes, you know, larger donors are giving big donations and they'd like to see the 5% go down more in line with what traditional DAF percentages are, and we're happy to meet them where they're at, to have those discussions.

Basically, it's a every time it's a case by case basis when we talk to these donors and figure out what it is that they'd like to have in terms of this fee because interestingly some donors because they're also supporting the silent donor mission when they're giving like we're not just taking a percentage to take a percentage.

It's directly what allows for us to offer this anonymous donation platform to donors all over the world. And so there are some donors even when they're giving large donation amounts that still elect to give us the full 5% because they know that it's going to support our mission in addition to going to the charity that they're trying to send the gift to. And then at other times our clients want this fee to be diminished and we're happy to do that as well. So we just really work with donors and we try to let them know that our fee is really going towards supporting our platform so that anyone has the chance to use it. And once that's clear, we're just happy to move forward with the client in whatever way that they think is best.

Mhm. Okay. That's interesting that it kind of builds on itself that people would be happy to pay not an additional fee, but yeah, the full freight because they know that it furthers the mission.

They're coming to you with a similar mission that your company has and so they're happy to, you know, kind of promote you while they're promoting their charity in order to encourage people as a whole to give more. So that is fascinating. You know one thing I was thinking about again this is not to pit silent owner against other offerings out there but just in terms of what makes your platform unique and this your decision to have a focus on anonymity and privacy. How are how are you guys going about that?

Is it just hey we spend a lot more time in due diligence on our you know internali cybersecurity and the you know location of you know our information how we're protecting our donor's data things of that nature. Can you speak to that all how you guys maybe are a little bit different than just traditional platforms out there? Cuz even some of the big ones like you do have the ability maybe to gift anonymously but maybe there's some nuances there and it reminds me it's not unlike any other industry like people in my industry they're like well I'm a financial adviser that does investment but I specialize in tax right and that's where they work with a lot of clients where they have this pain point where they're really trying to mitigate their taxes.

So could you maybe speak to that a little bit of where you guys how you view yourself versus some of the more traditional offerings out there?

Yeah, I think from a high level we're taking something that formerly was complex which is sending a completely anonymous donation and we're just making it as simple as filling out a donation form online. So I think the biggest differences between what we offer and what like traditional DAS offer or setting up your own family foundation is, you know, you don't even need to create an account. You don't need to register or anything to give through silent donor. If you create, if you want to give or set up your own donor advice fund, which might make sense after, you know, a discussion with your wealth adviser or something, it might make sense if you have like a longer term view of philanthropy.

You know, you're going to be giving to XYZ causes over the years or you have a big liquidity event such that it might make sense to all at once fund a DAF that way. Like that's totally fine. But you don't need like not everybody has that long-term view of philanthropy in mind such that they would need to set up their own donor advice fund, their own giving infrastructure. So what we say is you can simply use our infrastructure whenever you want to send a private gift.

So you don't need to go through the rigomeroll of you know setting a meeting with your CPA, your accountant, getting the account funded over the a couple of days, choosing the investment strategy of your death. Instead, you know, that same day you have an idea of where you'd like to give, you can execute your gift through silent donor immediately. So it just kind of is a difference on how you're viewing your philanthropy and what your role in philanthropy is for your family. More like legacy based stuff, you might want to go the family foundation route.

A lot of family foundations also have dashs though, so there's no reason, they're not like mutually exclusive or anything. The difference too between us is, you know, we send all donations to charities typically within 30 days on our platform. And typical donor advice funds when you put money in a DAF, there's no timeline when you have to actually send it to charity. So, you get the tax deduction the day you put it in the DAF, but then you could leave it in the DAF for 10 years if you want.

And you know, a criticism of typical deaths is that they have hundreds of billions of dollars right now sitting in them that aren't going to charity and the only people really that have benefited are the people that took the tax deduction. So that's kind of a big criticism of death, I guess, as a whole, although they do do a ton of good for nonprofits. I'm just mentioning some people do criticize it.

Sure.

From that from that perspective. So we send all gifts within 30 days. And then also, you know, we accept donations as little as $50, again, without the need to create an account. And I know some DAFs there's a higher barrier to entry. I think Vanguard is still $25,000 to open a DAF at all. So it just might make sense different sense depending, but you know, we work with some very wealthy donors, too. Like we, the Chronicle of Philanthropy did a story on us last year for a donor that gave an anonymous half a million, $500,000 donation.

And you know, it's clear that they were a donor of means. But maybe it wasn't the case that they had this long-term view of where they want to give 10, five years down the road. They just had an idea that they wanted to send this very generous donation anonymously and quickly. And so, they used us. And it's kind of like, you know, it's just choosing to if you'd like to set up your own infrastructure to do something or you'd like to use already existing infrastructure to accomplish something.

It just is going to depend on your circumstances, like I've kind of laid out earlier. So, we're just the fast and quick alternative to what a traditional DAF does. And, you know, it's funny. A lot of people, I feel like when they use silent donor, they don't even really necessarily understand that they're interacting with a DAF because I wanted to make it so simple and seamless that it was just like you fill out a donation form and you know that your donation is going to the charity that you want.

We don't need to, you know, we try to educate donors as much as we can that, you know, we are using a donor advice fund on the back end, but it's just so simple to use that you don't even need to have, some people don't even realize that they're interacting with the deaf when they give through our software. So, I think that's one of the main ways we differentiate ourselves. And then, of course, on the personal information front, we're, you know, private information is the whole base of our entire organization.

So we do have very particular and very stringent data policies that the big organizations do not have. And also it's so simple to use us because we are this niche offering which you mentioned. So, it's like there's a million analogies you can give, but if you have like a problem with your eye, you might want to go to an eye clinic where all they do is eyes every day. Or you can take your eye problem to the big hospital down the road, you know, the Fidelity or the Vanguard or whatever, and they could probably do something for your eye, but it's just not the same.

So when people come to us, they know that all we do is private gifts. And so they know that they're going to have a private gift sent fully anonymously because we have heard people's complaints from, oh, I went to some big institution. I swear that I elected to give this anonymously, but then lo and behold, they either I maybe I misclicked or maybe it didn't get through their system and now I'm getting outreach from the organization when I wanted to be private. So it's if anything it's just peace of mind too that if you give through silent donor you know that your gift is going to be private and anonymous whereas you might not feel as you might not feel that way if you're just using a big institution.

So that's kind of the differences in a nutshell. Yeah, it's sometimes I feel like and this is not to rag on bigger institutions at all, but sometimes that check box that they have that you can select to say I want to make this an anonymous gift gets missed because it's not, you know, readily apparent. Or it's just at the bottom it's kind of in small text and I see that come up a lot when I'm talking to people about beneficiaries and there's this idea of per capita versus per sturppies and without getting into the details too much most people like per sturppies but the default is per capita for most institutions and they just think you know and I get why they miss it because it's a really small line item on the form when we open up accounts and they just they just breeze by it and they're like there's 50 other things I got to fill out and sign so they just don't even think about it so it is kind of nice when you go to an institution like yours it's basically you know, the names on the on the on the head mass there.

It's like a silent don't. It's very clear what you guys are trying to accomplish there. As you were talking a couple of, you know, I always like to try and go back to, hey, where do I see that this is a fit for clients of ours.

One thing you mentioned was just ease of use and like quick and simple. A lot of people do gifting at the end of the year and as you mentioned, they'll come to us, it's kind of like when they want to set up an IRA right around tax time. They it'll be like December 26th. Are like, "Yeah, I talked about it with my husband or wife and we want to give x amount of dollars and our accountant said we should do it through a donor adise fund.

Can you set one up and can we make that gift before the end of the year?" And it's like maybe we don't know. So, it's nice to have an option to say, "Hey, you know, there's a donor adise fund. It's basically all set up. You don't have to set up your own account if you're looking to do something, you know, quick and easy and gift anonymously at the same time, but I think that's like a secondary benefit.

That might be different from, you know, kind of even people that would set up accounts, you know, with us, you know, through another donor advised fund offering. Another thing you had mentioned, I think this is more in the wealthy family space, people have like $10 million or more, is there are a lot of different options, right? There's donor adise funds, you mentioned family foundations, you know, people who want charitable remainder trusts or CRTs for short. People have a hard time sometimes deciphering what they should eat.

And I typically find that people that are at the wealthier end of the spectrum. They just hear things from dinner parties they're at or they read something in the news about, well, family foundations, you know, if you have x amount of dollars or more, that's what you should be using. But it's, you know, as the world continues to evolve, that's not always a good fit. There's a lot of administration that can go on with those types of tools, which can be a good thing or a bad thing.

I think you had mentioned when we were talking getting ready for this that hey sometimes people want their family members to you know have a job through their family foundation and that's what they're really interested in that can be a really good fit for that but a lot of times they just do it because they think well I have x amount of dollars that's what everybody uses in that wealth space donor advice fund can be great in many regards you can get the tax benefit for it you know you can send it to any charity that you want you can get done quick and easy but I think there's you know there's exceptions to that.

But so to me those were some of the you know big things that I was looking at from a financials perspective again in my through my advisor lens that are really attractive about this offering. But just looking at my list here I think I covered you know a lot of what you know I wanted to go over on behalf of our clients but other items I might have missed Tim that you think are worth noting when people start thinking about their charitable gifting and in particular gifting anonymously?

I think just in general with the landscape and the environment that we find ourselves in more and more people are looking to do things privately especially to mitigate you know the crazies that are on the internet they just want to give in peace they just like to do anything on the internet in peace these days and just giving is a small slice of that and that's all that we offer so we're happy to do it but yeah like I said as different you can measure privacy online and a bunch of different metrics the people that are using like duck.go the privacy search browser or Brave the privacy brow engine or people that are using like VPNs or Signal and Telegram the messaging apps the numbers are in like the hundreds of hundreds of millions active every day but the downloads are billions.

So, it's like while people are choosing privacy in so many different facets of their life, it just makes sense if you're an adviser or anybody else, if your client expresses an interest in wanting to give privately, you know, we can help. And so, that's the just I guess the final call I would say is we're happy to help. We work with clients all across the US of all different levels of wealth. Like I said, we accept donations as little as $50. So you don't have to have a whole mountain of money.

If you want to make it your own private and impactful difference, you could do do so on Silent Donor however you'd like. And we're happy to empower the larger wealthier families as they donate too. So yeah, it's just if it fits more in line with people's expectations hopefully that we can help play a role in making the world a better place little by little by sending charitable gifts. And we also too, without getting too complicated, we do allow for donations to be sent directly to organizations outside of the states as well.

If that's something that any clients are interested in, then we're happy to do that. It's kind of more of a niche offering, too. But it's something we're uniquely positioned to do with our office overseas, too. Yeah.

But, yeah, I think yeah, we covered more or less everything that I think would be good. But if there's anything that comes up with your audience or something, I'm happy to sit down with you or send you an email to you.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate the offer. And yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head just to close this out is the world is trending more towards privacy in all these different facets and sectors.

But I think what always has slowed down any of those sectors from adopting it is just like accessibility and ease of use. And it sounds like that's really, you know, part of why you just started this was like this is important, but like a lot of important things, people aren't going to use it all that much if it's not easy to easy for them to use even if even if they value it. So I think it's great, you know, kind of the mission that your company's on.

We're I'm definitely going to keep it in mind for myself, for my clients, and hopefully, you know, anybody that's watching this will keep silent donor in mind in the future. But I do appreciate you taking some time, Tim. And yeah, I wish you and your company all the best in the future.

Thanks, George. And as my parting wisdom to everybody, I would recommend please that they buy their own copy of George McCabe's book. I have one right at my desk that I just refer to during my hard days. Really gets me through. So please everyone go buy George McCabe's book. I

I'm going to go on record here because yeah, that I did not ask him to do that. He did not say that he was going to do that. So this was not some sort of sorted agreement from the beginning that, I was going to promote him, he was going to promote me. But with that being said, I appreciate it, Tim. So, thanks again, my friend. I appreciate it. And I will let you go.

All right. Take care.

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