With your own donor-advised fund, you control the disbursements. Give once, in your strongest month, and recommend the money out as a monthly grant to each cause you love, for as long as the seed lasts. The deduction lands the year you give. The giving flows all year.
From One Strong Month to Twelve Faithful Ones
Seed in a Strong Month
One gift into your fund when the cash is there: a big invoice paid, a good quarter, a sale. The deduction is for the year you give, if you itemize and within IRS limits.
Set the Schedule Once
Recommend a monthly grant to each cause you name. Many sponsors let you schedule recurring grant recommendations so the year runs without you writing a check.
The Sponsor Sends the Grants
Each month the sponsor checks the charity is eligible and sends the grant in your fund’s name. One receipt for the gift; the sponsor keeps the grant records.
Adjust Any Month
Pause, raise, lower, add a cause, or stop. You advise the fund; the schedule is yours to change. What you cannot do is take the money back.
Why We Call It Pre-Tilling
A farmer tills the whole field before the season, not one row a week. Pre-tilling your giving is the same move: the work of deciding, funding, and recording happens once, in a month when you have the cash and the clarity, and the rest of the year simply runs. The causes get a steady monthly gift they can plan around. You get one receipt, one decision, and a year of giving that does not depend on how next month goes.
Seed Your Own Year
Enter the gift, the month, the schedule, and the causes. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is stored or sent.
One Gift Into Your Fund, in a Strong Month
Round numbers are fine. The deduction question for this gift lives in the calculator; this model shows the flow.
Who Receives Each Month, and How Much
Name the charities that touch your heart and how the monthly grant is split. Each must be an IRS-recognized public charity the sponsor can grant to.
One $24,000 gift in Sep seeds 12 monthly grants of $2,000.
The gift is deductible for 2026 if you itemize and within IRS limits. The grants then flow Oct 2026 through Sep 2027, as you recommend and the sponsor approves.
Education only. Assumes the balance is held as cash at 0%: funds in a donor-advised fund are usually invested in the sponsor’s options and can go up or down, which changes what is available to grant. Grants are recommendations the sponsor approves.
| Twelve checks, the old way | 12 receipts · deduction only for what you gave each year · a decision every month |
| One seed, granted monthly | 1 receipt · deduction for $24,000 in 2026 · the schedule is set once and the sponsor sends the grants |
| What you still control | Amounts, timing, recipients, pauses, and the fund’s name. Change the recommendation any month. |
| What is fixed | The gift is irrevocable; grants go only to eligible charities; nothing can come back to you or fulfil a personal pledge. |
You Advise the Fund
This is the part most owners never hear: the gift is one decision, the giving is a schedule you set and change.
Timing
Give when your year is strongest; grant when the causes need it. The two no longer have to happen in the same month, or the same year.
Amount
Set the monthly grant to what the fund can sustain. A bigger seed, or a longer schedule, changes the number; the model shows both.
Recipients
Any IRS-recognized public charity the sponsor can grant to. Add a cause mid-year without a new gift.
Records
One gift, one receipt. The sponsor tracks every grant, so year-end is a single statement rather than a shoebox.
The Sponsor Holds the Fund
The same rules that make the gift deductible are the ones that keep it out of your hands afterward.
The gift is irrevocable
Once it is in the fund it belongs to the sponsoring charity. You hold advisory privileges over grants, not ownership.
Grants need approval
The sponsor confirms each recipient is an eligible charity. Grants are typically made as you recommend, and the sponsor’s policies govern.
No personal benefit
A grant cannot pay a pledge you personally owe, buy tickets or memberships, or benefit you or your family.
Growth is not promised
Funds are usually invested in the sponsor’s options and can go up or down. The model assumes cash at 0%.
Ready to Till Your Year?
Bring your seed month and your causes to a free orientation call. If a donor-advised fund fits, we start The 7-Day Seed that week, and your first grant schedule is one of its deliverables. Next tilling: Hand in Hand with Purpose, sizing each grant with the charity that receives it.
Education only; not tax, legal, or investment advice. Deductibility depends on itemizing and IRS limits; see the calculator and your CPA. Grants are recommendations the sponsoring charity approves under its own policies, to eligible charities only, and may not benefit you or fulfil a personal pledge. Funds in a donor-advised fund can go up or down; the model assumes cash at 0%. Kingdom Portfolios is not a DAF sponsor, never receives, holds, or invests charitable dollars, and receives no compensation from any sponsor or charity. Gifts to a donor-advised fund are irrevocable; the assets belong to the sponsoring charity and the donor holds advisory privileges.