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A FEW HARD RULES ABOUT DONATIONS
A FEW HARD RULES ABOUT DONATIONS
Donations are only accepted between Nov. 1 through Dec. 31 and must be a minimum of $10.
The vault closes at 11:59 PM on Dec. 31. No exceptions.
NOTIFICATIONS
NOTIFICATIONS
You'll always know who's donating to your organization. Every time a donor makes a gift, you'll instantly get a donation notification emailed to you. It'll contain the donor's contact info, gift details, opt in/out preferences, and a note if they've chosen to add one.
Notifications can only go to one email address. If you want these shared, then set up a shared account or an internal forwarding system (automate it with rules, here are instructions for Gmail, Outlook, and Apple's iCloud Mail).
Your stats will automatically update on giveguide.org. Check your org's profile page and watch the campaign thermometer change as each donation goes through the system. Site-wide stats are available on giveguide.org's landing page.
TAX RECEIPTS
TAX RECEIPTS
G!G asks you to send a tax receipt to all donors regardless of the donation amount (any gift over $250 must be recognized with a receipt per IRS requirements).
✅ Digital or print delivery is okay.
✅ If your nonprofit has a different tax receipt delivery policy, please follow it so long as every donor gets a tax receipt.
Tax receipts must include:
Donor name
Organization name
Organization TAX ID number
Organization contact information
Gift amount, date, and origin (Give!Guide)
Statement that no goods or services were provided by the organization, if that is the case (your incentives may impact tax deductibility)
👉 Need help? Here are some tax receipt templates from Neon and Kindful. You can also Google the topic, there are plenty of great examples to learn from.
THANK YOU NOTES
THANK YOU NOTES
It's your responsibility to send every donor a thank you and tax receipt, no matter what.
Send thank you notes ASAP (ideally within 24-48 hours). You may email, handwrite, automate, or send a carrier pigeon. Whatever method you choose, just make sure you thank your donor quickly.
⚠️ No Calls: G!G donors make it very clear in our surveys that they do not want a barrage of phone calls, so please resist the urge to call.
Tip: Make this easy on yourself by: (a) Creating an email template and personalize each response, or (b) pre-printing or writing a stack of "thank you cards" and personalize a batch at the end of each day, or (c) assigning this task to a volunteer.
A thank you note the first step in transitioning your new donors into lifetime donors. Research shows that the lack of gift acknowledgement is one of the biggest reasons donors stop giving. If you can manage just a 10% increase in your donor retention rate, a 200% increase in your donors' lifetime value is possible.
WHEN A DONOR OPTS OUT
WHEN A DONOR OPTS OUT
By default, all donors opted into communications and incentives. We're legally bound to let them opt out and sometimes they do.
👇 Here's what to do when it happens... (dropdown)
👇 Here's what to do when it happens... (dropdown)
Donation notifications will clearly show if a donor has opted out. All donors, no matter what, must be sent a tax receipt. Here are guidelines for when a donor...
Opts out of contact - Send their tax receipt and any incentives if applicable. Do not send anything else. Do not add them to mailings. Mark them as "do not contact" in your donor management systems.
Opts out of incentives - Send a thank you note and a their tax receipt, but don't send incentives if they qualified for any. You may add them to your mailing list unless they've also opted out of that, too (see above).
If a donor opts out, you need to honor this. When you don't, it destroys trust and damages everyone's reputation. You and G!G will lose donors over this issue.:
I made multiple donations via your site for the past several years. Each year I check the box to not be placed on the recipient's mailing lists. I have received contacts via e-mail, postal mail and text messages and it is taking time to request removal - also not knowing if my info has perhaps been sold to others.
Just letting you know that several organizations chose to ignore it. For this reason I am considering not using the GiveGuide. I appreciated the convenience of making multiple donations in one transaction but now not worth the time and effort to have myself removed from various lists.
Donor Reports
Donor Reports
Reports and donation notifications are emailed to the "Donation Notification Email" address as specified on your nonprofit's giveguide.org admin page. If more than one person needs to receive these emails, then create an internal workflow at your nonprofit to share or forward them. Here's what you can expect:
WITH EVERY DONATION
Every time a donor makes a gift, your nonprofit will automatically be emailed a donation notification with all the details.
WEEKLY SUMMARY
A full donation report is emailed on Friday mornings as a .csv file. Use it for weekly reconciliation and data entry (import it into your CRM).
THE FINAL REPORT
After reconciliation, a comprehensive donor report is sent at the close of the campaign.
REPORTS ON DEMAND
Get a donation report on demand from your org's giveguide.org account. This is available to you 24/7.
Donation Types
Donation Types
There are the three donation types: normal (credit card), direct-to-nonprofit, direct-to-G!G.
REGULAR (giveguide.org)
A donation made on giveguide.org with a credit card (nearly 98% of all transactions).
⚠️ Important: A 4.25% administrative fee is assessed on regular donations processed through giveguide.org.
The administrative fee helps defray some of these costs: interchange, processing, fraud deterrence, merchant fees, and reconciliation. G!G pays for everything beyond the 4.25% threshold (it's substantial). This fee is waived for direct-to-nonprofit/G!G donations.
NEW IN 2024: Donors now have the option to cover the 4.25% fee. Donors are asked at checkout if they would like to cover this fee for the nonprofit(s).
The following applies to transactions for which the donor chooses to cover the 4.25% fee:
Guidance: If a donor chooses to cover the fees during checkout, then the total amount is tax-deductible to the donor. Their decision to cover fees or not will be on every donation notification and in reporting, too.
Example: The donor gives $100 to the charity through G!G and elects to cover fees (4.25%), making the donation $104.25. The charity records a donation of $104.25 from the donor, and G!G remits $100 to the charity in January. Meaning, the $4.25 in fees would be tax-deductible to the donor.
DIRECT-TO-NONPROFIT
These donations are sent directly to the nonprofits via their giving portal. When this happens, you can get "soft credit" to your campaign by reporting it to G!G along with proof of payment or pledge.
Yes, pledges are allowed. This allows you to include funds that have been promised to your G!G campaign, but will be received after Dec. 31.
REQUIRED ACTION:
✅ Report all direct-to-nonprofit donations to G!G HQ. Here's a tutorial.
🗓️ Deadline: 6 PM, Dec. 31
DIRECT-TO-G!G
Donors can also mail G!G HQ a check and list of nonprofit distributions to G!G HQ.
G!G HQ manually enters the donations into the system and deposits the check.
You'll get a donation notification when your nonprofit gets funds this way.
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