Give OUT Day Curriculum
Text/Video

Donations, Prizes, and Fund Disbursement

Lesson 3

Watch and listen to a recording with slides, or read the full text below. NOTE: Some pieces of the video content may be outdated. Rely on the text below for the most up-to-date content.

Give OUT Day is an incredible opportunity to raise critical funds for your organization. Here are a few basics you should know about Give OUT Day donations.

  • Who can give. Any individual, regardless of geography, may donate.

  • Minimum donation. The minimum donation on the Give OUT Day platform is $10; there is no maximum donation. Only donations of $10 or more will count toward the prizes, which we’ll cover next.

  • Tax-deductible. All gifts are 100% tax-deductible.

  • Donation receipts. Donations made on giveoutday.org will automatically receive a receipt from the Mightycause Charitable Foundation, which represents the technology platform of Give OUT Day. Your organization can – and should – include a custom message that will be included in the tax receipt email sent to donors to thank them. See this lesson in the next course for a template.

  • No refunds. All donations are irrevocable; donations cannot be refunded.

  • Payment methods. Donations can be made via credit card, debit card, PayPal, ACH, and ApplePay. E-checks are not accepted.
     
  • Transaction fees. There is no fee to participate in Give OUT Day, only transaction fees. But you can allow donors to cover these fees. To ensure 100% of every donation goes to your organization, donors have the option to cover the transaction costs (2.0% platform fee + 2.9% processing fee + $0.30 per transaction) for your nonprofit during check out from their shopping cart (an option selected by 80-90% of donors). For donors that give via their bank account (ACH), there is still the 2.0% platform fee, but the processing fees will be replaced by a 1% transaction fee, plus a $1.50 fixed fee per transaction (total ACH processing fees will be capped at $5.00).

  • Raffles/donation incentives. Federal law prohibits charities from promising or providing goods and services (e.g., tickets to events or raffles) in exchange for a donation to a donor-advised fund such as Mightycause Charitable Foundation, Give OUT Day's platform partner. Give OUT Day participating organizations may only accept pure contributions and not part-gift and part-sale transactions.

  • Donation reports. You can download donor information by navigating to your dashboard under “Reports” and selecting “Donations.” Here, you can also access a report specifically about donor retention – that is, a measure of how many people who donate to your organization come back and donate again. You can also access a report about recurring donations. To edit recurring donations, the donors themselves must do this. This Mightycause article explains how donors can update their recurring donations.

Prizes

Please review the Rules and Prizes page on the Give OUT Day website for the latest information about this year's prizes.

What about donations outside the Give OUT Day platform (i.e., offline donations)?

We strongly encourage all organizations to focus your campaign on your Give OUT page on Mightycause, rather than an external donation platform such as Facebook or your organization’s website. Sending donors to your page on giveoutday.org, rather than elsewhere, simplifies your campaign by displaying, in a single spot, your fundraising total against your goal and in comparison to the totals raised by other organizations.

In addition, using giveoutday.org ensures that every Give OUT Day donation your organization receives immediately counts toward the Leaderboard prizes. Should your organization receive donations outside the platform, you can input these donations on your dashboard, under “Reports,” “Donations,” and “Offline Donations.” Horizons Foundation reserves the right to request documentation of these gifts.

Note: Offline donations do not count toward Lead Up or Power Hour prizes. Only donations received online through your Give OUT Day page will count towards those types of prizes.

 To count toward the Leaderboards, the gifts must meet the following conditions:

  • The gift is $10 or more;

  • The donor’s first name, last name, and email address are provided, and do not match an on-platform donor’s details;

  • The gift is a direct result of an explicitly Give OUT Day fundraising ask, and must not represent payment of membership dues, ticket sales, or ongoing monthly donations initiated prior to the beginning of the campaign;

  • The gift is entered by the participating nonprofit between 12:00 a.m. ET May 1, 2024 and 11:59 p.m. ET on May 30, 2024.

Receipt of Funds

For fund disbursement, we recommend that you set up free electronic fund transfer (EFT) to your bank. To set it up, navigate to the dashboard, “Settings,” and “Disbursement Settings.” If you prefer to receive disbursements via check, each check will have a $5 processing fee applied.

For organizations that have set up EFT, the Mightycause Foundation, which administers Give OUT Day fund disbursement, will disburse monies on the 10th of the month for donations made in the second half of the previous month, and on the 25th for donations made in the first half of the same month. If you have not set up EFT, you will receive one monthly disbursement as a check mailed on the 10th of the month after donations are made.

Pen