The first operating system built specifically for alternative-asset philanthropy.
Provenance is the institutional-grade donor-advised fund (DAF) management platform powering The Alternatives Foundation. It is purpose-built to accept, administer, and liquidate the assets most charities can't take — LP interests, private equity, venture capital, closely-held business interests, real estate, and digital assets — alongside traditional cash.
One system. One source of truth. Three audiences.
Request a Demo
Every stakeholder sees exactly what they need — and nothing they don't.
Operators run the trust day-to-day — funds, positions, grants, capital calls, distributions, fees, compliance, and a complete audit log.
Donors see balances and statements, recommend grants, and track gift impact across every fund they advise.
Beneficiary universities and research organizations see funds dedicated to them and the donors who chose to be identified.
Alternative assets modeled as first-class data — not workarounds in a memo field.
Every illiquid position carries its own commitments, capital calls, distribution notices, K-1s, and exit tracking — modeled as first-class data.
Ownership snapshots, disqualified-person math, and the documented-liquidation-path escape hatch are calculated continuously and surfaced before they become problems.
Donee acknowledgment and the three-year disposition window are tracked per gift, with alerts well ahead of filing deadlines.
Every recommended grant is screened in real time against Pub 78, the Auto-Revocation List, and the disqualified-persons register.
Universities and research organizations get a transparent view across every Sub-Fund dedicated to them — while each Sub-Fund remains the legal §4966 DAF.
Tiered cash schedules and per-asset illiquid rates with greater-of basis math, year-one minimum proration, and a full audit trail on every position.
Notices, expected wires, and actual cash receipts are matched automatically; exceptions are surfaced as actionable alerts rather than buried in a spreadsheet.
Funding sources — foundation cash or donor backstop — are tracked per call, with deadline alerts and donor-guarantee protections built in.
Sixteen document categories — qualified appraisals, LPAs, capital account statements, K-1s, donor guarantees, gift acceptance memos — all secured and audit-ready.
Granular consent gating determines what crosses to beneficiary institutions: identified, anonymous, or pending donor decision.
Passkey-first multi-factor authentication, server-side revocable sessions, automatic audit logging on every write, and CSRF protection throughout.
Deployed with Postgres, scheduled cron for fee accrual and Pub 78 refresh, monitoring, a transactional email outbox, and durable document storage.
Most charitable platforms were built for cash and public securities. They treat alternative assets as exceptions. Provenance treats them as the rule — without sacrificing the rigor required of a §501(c)(3) sponsor. The result is a system donors trust with their most complex gifts and operators trust to keep every side compliant.