As a small-business owner, DonorsTrust client Frayda Levy observed that while private enterprises must experiment, adapt, and solve problems to stay in business, government is usually slow, rigid, and incapable of innovation. Even when programs prove to be ineffective or exacerbate the issues lawmakers intended to solve, change can take decades.

Frayda saw that private action and charitable organizations are the best means of addressing the problems government initiatives simply aren’t suited to. Unlike government, charities can run many experiments simultaneously, learn from failures, and adopt the most effective strategies.

To leverage the advantages of donor-supported nonprofits, Frayda likes to give strategically across multiple levels of the change-making process, from culture change and policy education to grassroots organizing and mobilization. She supports and has served on the boards of groups like the Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, the Foundation for Economic Education, and the Moving Picture Institute, which she co-founded.

The result of Frayda’s layered approach to philanthropy is a giving portfolio that spans dozens of unique charities. “By the time my husband, Ken, and I decided to open a DonorsTrust account, we were already giving to about 30-40 charities a year,” Frayda recalls.

And for a while, that breadth came at a real cost of time and stress. Frayda once found herself drowning in spreadsheets, spending hours each tax season reconciling checkbook entries and credit card donations. She was addressing and stamping envelopes on her own for each donation. “At some point,” Frayda says, “we realized all of that hassle would be eliminated if we did our giving via DonorsTrust.”

The dedicated grants team at DonorsTrust took the administrative work off Frayda’s plate. Rather than writing dozens of individual checks and maintaining complex records, Frayda and her husband Ken now transfer appreciated securities to DonorsTrust once or twice a year.

With funds in her DAF account, Frayda simply sends DonorsTrust a list of organizations and amounts each quarter. The DonorsTrust team ensures the grantee organizations are vetted, mails the checks, and collects all of Frayda’s giving into a single report.

Frayda’s advice to philanthropists is simple: “DonorsTrust is too good not to be used.”