This article applies to charitable donations via Evite and other other discrete donation forms, and NOT to our Give & Grow product for Shopify merchants. For Give & Grow, please go to that section of this help site.
There may be deductions from the gross donation amount, depending on where the donation was made and the form of payment:
Payment Card Processing
Deductions for payment card processing depend on the platform and product on which the donation originates.
Pledge covers all payment card fees for any donation less than $1,000 made using Pledge’s products on the Pledge platform: our Fundraiser Pages, Donation Forms, and Zoom App.
Any other payment made via a payment card, whether intended for a charitable organization or personal fundraiser, is assessed a 2.9% + 30¢ charge. This amount is deducted from the amount regranted to the designated charity or paid to the personal fundraiser beneficiary and is primarily used to pay third party payment processor costs. This does not apply if:
there is a “cover our costs” checkbox on the donation form and the donor selects it. In this case, the payment card amount is increased to account for the donor covering costs and the payment card processing fee is not deducted from the donation. See the "Technology Fee" section below.
a commercial partner or sponsor has agreed to pay for payment card processing for donations on a specific site or to a specific cause or charitable organization. In this case, that partner will pay the payment card fees.
Tips or Technology Fee
Donation forms may have an optional tip, and if they do, there is no Technology Fee. If there is no tip option, then there is a Technology Fee.
- Exception: Employee engagement programs have a separate fee structure per an agreement between the employer and Pledgeling.
Tips. The tip is optional and can be adjusted, including to $0.00. The tip is displayed to you prior to you approving the charge to your payment card. Tips are in addition to the donation amount so do not affect the amount reaching the charitable organization or personal fundraiser beneficiary. Because tips flow immediately to a for-profit service provider, under IRS rules they are not tax deductible to the donor.
Technology Fee. In cases where there is no optional tip on a donation form, there is a 5% Technology Fee deducted from the amount regranted to the designated charity or paid to the personal fundraiser beneficiary. There are two exceptions:
The donor may may see an option to “cover our costs.” If selected, the payment card processing and technology fees will be added on top of the donation / contribution amount, and the donor will pay the combined total. In that case, those fees are not deducted from the donation prior to regranting.
One of our commercial partners or sponsors may pay for the payment card processing and technology fees for donation forms hosted on a specific site or to a specific cause or charitable organization.
Per Disbursement (Payout) Fees
At the end of a payment cycle (typically a calendar month), all donations to an organization, from all sources, are aggregated. There may be charges to cover our disbursement processing; this is assessed once per check or electronic transfer:
Per-Check Fees for Disbursements to US Charitable Organizations. At the end of every calendar month, we calculate the amounts received for every charitable organization, net of the fees above, and send US charitable organizations payment for all amounts greater than $20. We charge a $5 processing fee per paper check.
We charge a $5 processing fee per disbursement, whether paper check or ACH.
Fees for Disbursements to Charitable Organizations Outside the US. For payments to non-US charities not registered as 501c3 organizations with the IRS, we partner with international nonprofits who handle the disbursements to the recipients. They will charge a 5% fee against the amount of the donations that we send to them. They may aggregate payments due to a specific organization across multiple months in order for the disbursements to be economic. Disbursements via ACH are not available for non-US charities.