Your Giving Is Personal. Your Login Should Be, Too.

At Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, we do more than manage the funds you trust us with. We also work to keep your information safe when you manage your giving.

Donor-advised funds are now easier to use online, and new digital tools let you recommend grants straight from nonprofit websites. While this is convenient, it can also bring risks that are easy to miss.

Some third-party services might ask you to enter the same username and password you use for your Community Foundation fund holder portal into a form on another organization’s website. Sometimes, these third parties can use your login details to access your DAF account and start a transaction.

Here’s our simple advice:

Only enter your fundholder login details on the Community Foundation’s official portal.

Why This Matters

A website might look familiar, professional, and trustworthy, but it could still use a third-party service that is not part of Fairfield County’s Community Foundation.

Giving your portal login to an outside service can cause several problems.

Your login details may be exposed outside the Community Foundation’s secure environment. Once you give your username and password to another service, Fairfield County’s Community Foundation can’t control how your information is handled or protected.

It can be difficult to know who you are authorizing. Third-party disclosures may appear in terms of service, privacy policies, or pop-up notices that are easily overlooked.

Third-party transactions may carry additional fees or terms. An online service facilitating a DAF transaction may operate under conditions that differ from those governing your fund at Fairfield County’s Community Foundation.

It can also make it harder to spot fraud. Most importantly, if you get used to entering your Community Foundation login on other websites, it becomes tougher to tell a real service from a phishing scam.

Five Ways to Protect Your Fund

You don’t need to be a cybersecurity expert to protect your DAF. Just a few simple habits can make a big difference:

1. Start with Fairfield County’s Community Foundation.
   When you want to recommend a grant from your FCCF fund, always start with the official FCCF fundholder portal, not a link, widget, or login prompt on another website.
2. Keep your FCCF credentials exclusive to Fairfield County’s Community Foundation.
   Never give your Fairfield County’s Community Foundation username or password to a nonprofit, fundraising platform, or any third-party service, even if it seems like a quicker way to make a DAF grant.
3. Be cautious when you see “Give from your DAF.”
   That button might be real, but it doesn’t always mean the service is connected to or approved by the Community Foundation. If you’re asked for your FCCF username and password, stop and go back to the Fairfield County’s Community Foundation portal.
4. Strengthen your account security.
   Create a unique password for your fundholder account, don’t reuse it on other sites, and use multifactor authentication whenever you can.
5. When in doubt, ask us.
   If you see a DAF tool, email, website, or login request that seems suspicious, reach out to the Community Foundation before entering your login details. Taking a moment to check can protect your personal information and your charitable fund.

Convenience—Not at the Expense of Security

Technology is making giving easier, faster, and more connected. That’s great for donors and the nonprofits they help. But innovation works best when convenience, transparency, and security all move forward together.

The Community Foundation will continue to review new charitable-giving technologies with these principles in mind. Our job isn’t just to make giving easy. We want to make sure your philanthropy stays secure, intentional, and truly yours.

So, when you’re ready to recommend your next grant, remember one simple rule:

Start with Fairfield County’s Community Foundation.

Give with confidence.

And keep your login where it belongs.