Frequently Asked Questions
Q: I'm a donor. How does Charity Blossom help me?
A:Charity Blossom helps you help your favorite charities and nonprofits.
First, we make it easy for you to make donations, easily effectively, and creatively.
Donors and donations are the foundation for nearly every nonprofit. Charities rely on you and your contributions to survive and thrive. Contributions are the seeds of of their success. You can make donations to help nearly every recognized charity and nonprofit in the United States. The process of donating is easy, efficient, and effective. You can donate a little or a lot. We make it easy for you to contribute and track all of your donations online. Come next April when gathering tax information, you'll be thankful you made your charitable contributions through Charity Blossom!
Second, Charity Blossom is a rich information source about charities and nonprofits. Using publicly available sources, information provided by charities themselves, and content submitted from our user community at large, Charity Blossom gives you a detailed view and perspective into nonprofits. Find out about a nonprofit's mission, their effectiveness, finances, and other details. See how others have rated or reviewed a nonprofit and hear their stories about it.
Of course, we rely on your help too. As a community resource, we hope you tell others your stories and leave ratings and reviews of charities. You can help "complete picture" to give more exposure to these organizations.
Q: Are my donations tax deductible?
A: 100% of your gift may be deducted as a charitable contribution on your federal and state income tax returns, subject to general limitations applicable to your personal circumstances. Please consult your tax adviser.
See the "Tell me more about how your process donations" below for more details.
Q: I'm a charity. How does Charity Blossom help my nonprofit?
A: Charity Blossom is here to help you too.
First, our principle goal is to bring you more donors and donations to you. Using Charity Blossom, donors can make contributions to your organization, quickly, easily, and efficiently. We save you much of the time and effort of receiving, processing, and managing donations and donors.
Second, we provide you with tools to help you communicate with your donors and potential donors and build stronger relationships with them. Facebook, Twitter, email/newsletters, and the Charity Blossom website (your "listing" page) are all ways we can help you get your message out to your constituents.
Our basic donor relationship management software platform is free. (We may some day add a premium subscription package providing advanced tools so that you can be even more effective.) As a provider of software for nonprofits and charities, we help nonprofits communicate with visitors, potential donors, and donors. Our software will help manage, understand, and cultivate those relationships. You'll be able to interact with your community, provide information to your constituencies, and build stronger trusted relationships with others.
We offer our software product "on demand" over the Internet. We host the software so there is no need for you to install or manage hardware or software.
Q:Tell me more about how you process donations!
Charity Blossom is a 501(c)(3) public charity. As part of its mission, Charity Pass solicits contributions from the general public into its donor advised fund and its field of interest funds. Learn more ...
Q:Are there fees when processing a donation at Charity Blossom?
A:Charity Blossom charges a small fee of 7% to process a donation. Most of that (4%) goes directly to our transaction processing provider, PayPal. The remainder is used to offset the costs of running this website, delivering grants, and keeping the lights on!
Q:How long does it take to deliver a grant once my donation is made
A:Charity Blossom notifies a nonprofit nearly immediately if we have a grant for it. We will make grants to charities as quickly as possible after receiving donations. In most cases, this may happen almost instantaneously (for example, if Charity Pass has pre-approved the recipient organization as a grantee, and if Charity Pass has the authorization to make electronic transfers to the recipient), but in some cases may take about 60 days if Charity Blossom needs to conduct additional due diligence on donations and grantees. All grants are paid via PayPal. Please note, after the first grant has been distributed to a nonprofit, subsequent grants will be aggregated together until the sum of the grants is atleast $250. We do this to ensure greater efficiency and minize the transaction costs of sending grants.
Q:How will a donation show up on my credit card statement?
A:If you make your donations using a credit card, the credit card line item description will be “CHARITY BL.”
Q:How do I see a receipt for my donations?
A:Immediately upon completing your donation, you will be presented with a receipt. An email will your receipt will also be sent to you. Further, if you have registered with Charity Blossom, you can view your receipts at any time online. Simply login and go to "My Donations." We remove the hassle for keeping track of your charitable contributions. You'll be thankful when tax season comes along and you need to dig up those receipts for all the good that you have done! So sign up and get this benefit today.
Q: What is a Charity Blossom Accredited Nonprofit? What is the Charity Blossom Badge of Trust?
A: Nonprofits that meet certain criteria may qualify as a Charity Blossom Accredited Nonprofit. Accredited Nonprofits may display the Charity Blossom Badge of Trust. When you see the Badge, be assured that a Nonprofit meets standards of Trust, Transparency, and Trust, as required by Charity Blossom. We describe the Accredited Nonprofit criteria and the Badge of Trust here.
Q: The information for my nonprofit is incorrect. How can this be fixed?
A: By joining Charity Blossom, you can "claim" your listing. Once claimed, you can update and control most all of the information that is available. Secondly, we get data from the IRS. Sometimes this information is out of date with the state of a nonprofit. As new and updated information becomes available, we update the Charity Blossom database. Note that Charity Blossom itself does not, under ordinary circumstances, manually update the data for a nonprofit. Under special circumstances, such as legal requirements, we will.
Q: I don't want information about a nonprofit to be displayed. Can you please remove the listing?
A: We are a community resource of publicly available information. As such, we service both nonprofits and visitors (typically donors and potential donors) wanting information about nonprofits. We balance these two interests. We want to transparently provide as must truthful information as transparently as possible. A nonprofit can claim their listing and elide some of the information but for the most part we do not allow for the complete removal of a listing. If there is a legal reason to update or remove a listing, please let us know.
Q: You have a listing for an organization that is no longer in operation. Will you please remove the listing?
A: We get our listings of nonprofit organizations from the IRS and we, in general, list all of these organizations and update the information as it becomes available. As for organizations that stop operating, our policy is to continue listing information about them. Our reasoning is that we believe that the public should know about organizations that are defunct. You, as an individual, can add a comment as to the non-operational status. As for updating information such as address and contact information, our policy is to publish the latest information that we get from the IRS (or from the last update from the organization itself). Only individuals that have authority over a (defunct) organization can make an update.
Q: I want to help my favorite charities in other ways, such as volunteering time. Can Charity Blossom help?
A: We believe volunteering time is a noble and worthwhile effort. However, we're focused on getting donations to help nonprofits and improving communication between nonprofits and their community first.
Q: I am a nonprofit. Am I eligible to receive advised grants?
A: Please read the For Nonprofits subsection of "Donation Processing" in our Terms of Service.