DAFinitive with Melissa Bank Stepno

DAFinitive with Melissa Bank Stepno

From Next in Nonprofits by Next in Nonprofits

January 6, 2026 · 46 min · Episode 138

About this episode

Melissa Bank Stepno discusses the creation and management of DAFinitive, a searchable database for donor advised funds.

Melissa Bank Stepno is the President & CEO of The Helen Brown Group and the Managing Director of DAFinitive, "the only searchable database that helps you find more information about donor advised funds." Melissa joins the podcast to talk about the decision to create and manage a database in the increasingly large field of donor advised funds. Melissa describes how her team uses human-powered sources to research giving using DAFs, and catalogs that information with links out to sources when possible. Those links are often backed-up on Archive.org, the Internet's Way Back Machine, to provide access to source sites that may since have changed or removed the data. The DAFinitive team works to connect the names of donors behind the funds when possible, realizing that sometimes donors are choosing anonymity and sometimes the data is just harder to find. Many family foundations are now using DAFs, and increasingly new donors are eschewing family foundations entirely in favor of DAF giving. Listeners are welcome to visit DAFinitive.com and request a demo to see the tools in action

People in this episode

Guest: Melissa Bank Stepno

Topics covered

  • donor advised funds
  • database management
  • non-profit funding
  • philanthropy
  • research methods

Keywords

  • DAFinitive
  • donor advised funds
  • human-powered research
  • family foundations
  • anonymity in giving

Mentioned in this episode

Products: DAFinitive, DAFinitive.com

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