I used to think that a dollar in my DAF^[1] was approximately as good as a dollar in my normal bank account for making the world a better place. Lots of orgs try to measure or increase “charitable dollars,” with an implication that a 20-40% boost in charitable dollars via tax planning strategies^[2] is highly worthwhile.

But in the political giving world, charitable money is worth quite a bit less than more-flexible money and so if you are thinking about doing political giving you may not want to put so much into a DAF, because it restricts your options quite a bit.

(When I say “charitable” I mean money that is restricted to granting to 501c3 orgs, and that’s opposed to what I call “flex” money which has no such restriction. And yes, I acknowledge that this post is very US-centric.)

Political giving is a world where both structure and timing matters a whole lot:

Charitable money is hard to use politically

In US politics, charitable organizations can’t advocate for candidates directly. Charitable money is trapped such that you cannot use it for most political activities. Under the 501c3 umbrella you can fund research, as well as non-partisan education—civics, history, voter registration and so on—that may help the broader political purpose, but you cannot campaign at all, and can only do fairly limited amounts of lobbying.

Campaigns buy a lot of advertising

A high percentage of money donated to campaigns (I’ve heard 75%) tends to go to buying ads. Political fundraising and ads are heavily regulated, so not just anybody can buy political ads. You have to be a campaign or a PAC. (Neither can accept charitable money.)

The FCC has a rule called Lowest Unit Charge which prevents broadcasters from price-gouging political campaigns that they don’t like. My understanding is that during the busy six weeks or so before an election, ad prices shoot up for everyone else, but the campaigns still pay lowest prices for advertising.

This LUC rule only applies, however, to candidate campaigns themselves, not PACs; and campaigns are limited in their fundraising by only being able to raise a limited amount from each individual—$3500 per federal campaign in 2026—so if there are donors who want to give more to get more advertising, they have to do it indirectly via a PAC.

Timing

Early spending on campaigns is much more effective than late spending. David Slifka concludes that “after Memorial Day, your political gifts lose half their value.” Another knowledgeable person indicated a strong preference for now over later: they’d rather have $3k now (October 2025) instead of $10k in summer 2026 after the primaries—this makes sense since primaries are often more impactful than general elections, and money is scarce before and during a primary. Also, donations from the public are reliable just before an election, but campaigns can’t save up the money (donors expect campaigns to spend it all on each election) and so if you want to help orgs and campaigns build and retain capacity, then donating when there’s no near-term election is much more helpful.

So what are PACs anyway?

Political action committees (PACs) are a way to use additional marginal funds beyond the campaign contribution limit to advertise on behalf of candidates or political causes. PACs are not allowed to simply be an arm of a candidate’s campaign; they need to have independent leadership and must not coordinate with candidates at all. They also don’t get the benefit of the Lowest Unit Charge pricing, so they have to pay higher prices for the same ad slots, usually 2-3x at peak times.^[3]

As a result, my understanding is that campaigns apply a massive discount: direct campaign contributions, called “hard money,” are 2-3x more valuable than PAC money, but both are far more valuable for electing your candidate than charitable money.

Beyond individual campaigns

Charitable money can definitely be used for advocacy: performing research and analysis, developing policy positions as long as they are not about a specific bill, and efforts to convince an administrative agency to change its regulations.^[4] But if you call for specific political legislative actions (support/oppose a given bill, contact your representative) then it becomes lobbying, and is more regulated. Charitable money can fund advocacy, but is limited in lobbying, which can’t be a “substantial part” of a 501c3’s activities.

So depending on your political goals, you might have different fundraising efforts between a 501c3 (charitable advocacy) and a 501c4 (can do lobbying but needs flex money). Big American political advocacy groups tend to have both types of legal entities, but the default org to receive donations and budgetary divisions differ:

I’m pretty sure most orgs would prefer the same amount granted to the c4 over the c3 since it’s more flexible. How much more they prefer it depends on the org. I suspect that some orgs have a greater than 2x preference, and others are closer to 1.2-1.5x. Regardless, even a low estimate comes close to wiping out most of the benefit of tax deductibility to a c3^[5].

PACs are even more flexible

Movement Voter Project blogged in favor of PAC donations:

Simply put: With C3 and a majority of C4 money, organizers can [only] talk about “saving democracy.” With PAC money, they can talk about “defeating Trump and MAGA Republicans” — up and down the ballot.

They argue that “political dollars” (by which they mean PAC funding) is far more valuable (perhaps 2.5x) than c4 funding, for anti-Trump purposes at least. The only drawback is privacy.^[6]

Don’t forget parties

Party committees (at the national and state level) are another potential political donation target with advantages similar to those of PACs. Like PACs, they don’t get cheap TV ads, but they do get cheaper direct mail^[7], and they can advocate directly for specific candidates and coordinate directly with campaigns to support candidates. Parties aren’t as much expected to spend down their budgets during election season, but they still have boom and bust cycles, just a little bit less intensely.

Party work can invest in infrastructure, and can build a political brand across candidates—both of which may be quite leveraged, although in my opinion neither party’s brand is strong right now and I don’t really have the sense that the national parties’ infrastructure is particularly functional.

Based on my lack of knowledge and confidence, I am not placing political party donations into my hierarchy right now, but it might be worth researching it for your states of interest specifically, since I think the structural leverage factors are strong, and in some worlds parties can be competitive with PACs.

Overall

With only a little bit of fudging, the above factors stack multiplicatively, and so it’s super worth taking them into account if you are thinking about political giving. Let’s put rough numbers on everything we’ve talked about, relative to donating to a tax deductible 501c3:

Visualized, here’s the cumulative impact for a hypothetical $1000 grant:

Where your political goals can be achieved by campaigns, the leverage can be quite massive and thus putting all your money into a DAF could be a mistake. Hopefully this stack can help you think clearly about how best to achieve your political goals.

1. ^{^}

   DAF = Donor-Advised Fund. Money in a DAF has been promised to charitable purposes (e.g. donating to 501c3 orgs only), but has not been granted to any particular charity yet.

2. ^{^}

   An example of tax planning is donating appreciated shares to a DAF just before liquidation. This lets you take the full-value deduction while avoiding capital gains taxes.

3. ^{^}

   New Republic: https://newrepublic.com/article/167696/candidates-tv-ad-rates-super-pac-tax

4. ^{^}

   Nonprofit Quarterly: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/advocacy-lobbying-501c3-charitable/

5. ^{^}

   Throughout this post, I’m assuming you are planning to donate money saved on taxes. I’m using an estimated tax rate of 25%, but whatever rate you choose (between 15-40%) doesn’t really change the conclusion much.

6. ^{^}

   There are substantial trade-offs with privacy. c3 and c4 donations can be anonymous, but PAC donations and campaign contributions are a matter of public record.

7. ^{^}

   US Postal Service qualifies certain political committees to receive nonprofit pricing, which is a roughly 40-60% savings for postage on mail campaigns. Postage appears to be the bulk of the cost for political mail, so this can be substantial.