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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is Give the Change a Commercial Fund Raiser

A: No

The California Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General defines a Commercial Fundraiser as:

“a person or corporation paid by a charity to raise money on the charity’s behalf. The charity pays the for-profit business either a flat fee or a percentage of the donations collected in the charity’s name.”

http://oag.ca.gov/charities/cfr

Give the Change (GtC) falls outside of this definition on two counts:

  1. GtC is not paid by charities – we don’t charge non-profits anything, never have and don’t have any plans to. When donors “Give the Change” we let our non-profits “Keep the Change”, 100% of it. GtC’s revenue comes from the merchants for providing card payment services; at the same rate (or less than) they pay banks and other card issuers.
  2. GtC doesn’t collect the donations that the charities receive by being “members” of the “Give the Change System” (these terms are defined in our agreements with non-profits available for review at member.givethechangecard.com) the funds are routed directly through banks, card networks and processors from the donor directly to the non-profit.

Charities sign two agreements to participate in the Give the Change System, one with Give the Change (aka Cause Based Solutions Inc.) to license our trademarks and to agree to work with approved service providers who support our ecosystem. They then contract directly with our approved card processor to route the funds from the donor to the non-profit. That card processor works in the same way that other processors and banks do to transmit funds and is regulated accordingly.

Clearly Give the Change partners with non-profits but technical our relationship in order to deliver very powerful cause based marketing of a payment card. Merchants often use cause-based marketing supporting charities in order to encourage the public to use their services, including collecting change from their customers and passing it to the non-profit.

So in summary because GtC neither takes money from charities, and isn’t directly in the loop of paying the donations to the charities we are not considered to be Fundraisers.

Q: How often are donations from Give the Change cards transferred to non-profits?

A: Weekly, on Mondays.

Q: How can non-profits track the donations from Give the Change?

A: Non-profits receive a weekly report, that can be imported into Excel or a non-profit’s accounting or CRM system. This report details each micro-donation, time/date, amount and the email address of the donor.