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. Working with our partner, the Clearport Technology Group, you can make donations to 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: 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!
At Charity Blossom, we work with the Clearport Technology Group. The Clearport Technology Group (“Clearport”) is a 501(c)(3) public charity. As part of its mission, Clearport solicits contributions from the general public into its donor advised fund and its field of interest funds. For donations into its donor advised fund, Clearport permits each donor to identify the specific charity to which he or she would like Clearport to make a grant, subject to Clearport’s discretion and control over the donated funds. For donations into one of its field of interest funds, Clearport permits each donor to make a selection from a list of charitable field of interest options, and Clearport in its own discretion will select one or more charities in that field to which Clearport will make a grant with the donation. Clearport has engaged the services of Charity Blossom (a d/b/a of Sakura Media, Inc.) to maintain the website through which donations are accepted, to issue receipts to donors, and to manage the administrative aspects of processing donations. (In order to operate this service and "keep the lights on," Clearport charges a small fee (3% of each donation) and deducts an additional portion of each donation (approximately 4%) to cover the fee for a payment transaction provider. Clearport currently uses PayPal as its payment transaction provider, and a full disclosure of PayPal’s transaction fees can be found here.)
At the time a donation is made, each donor will have the option of choosing either to contribute into the donor advised fund or to make a field of interest donation. If the donor advised fund option is selected, the donor may additionally advise on which charities should ultimately receive a grant from Clearport from the donated funds. (When a choice of donation method is made, the donor will be prompted to agree to Clearport’s standard field of interest gift agreement or donor advised fund agreement, depending on the choice that was made.) Clearport, as the sponsor of both the field of interest funds and the donor advised fund, retains full discretion and control over all contributions, however. This means, for example, that in the rare event the organization you have recommended to receive a grant from the donor advised fund does not meet Clearport's criteria for grants (for example, the organization no longer has tax-exempt status or is no longer in active operation, among other things), Clearport will select an alternate grantee, if possible in consultation with you.
Clearport expects that it will make grants to charities as quickly as possible after receiving donations. In most cases, this may happen almost instantaneously (for example, if Clearport has pre-approved the recipient organization as a grantee, and if Clearport has the authorization to make electronic transfers to the recipient), but in some cases may take from 30 to 90 days if Clearport needs to conduct additional due diligence on grantees and/or needs to issue physical checks for the distribution. Also, with respect to the donor advised fund, Clearport may hold grant disbursements until at least $250 have be collected from donors for a certain nonprofit.
Clearport is tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. 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.
Receipts for donations are provided by Charity Blossom on behalf of Clearport and in Clearport’s name. If you make your donations using a credit card, the credit card line item description will be “CLEARPORT.”
Charity Blossom keeps track of all of your donations. Receipts for your donations are generated by Clearport but Charity Blossom sends them to you and makes them available to you on the Charity Blossom website. 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!
Why work with Clearport? We've decided that using Clearport is the easiest, most efficient, and most flexible way for us to allow you to make donations. As a nonprofit, Clearport is a trusted partner whose mission is to provide help and support charities and nonprofits. They are a great fit for our mission.
Details of the Clearport Donor Advised Fund can be found here. Details of the Clearport Fields of Interest Funds can be found here. When you donate through Charity Blossom, you also agree to the Charity Blossom Terms of Service as it applies to donation processing.
Q: What is a Charity Blossom Accredited Nonprofit? What is the Charity Blossom Badge of Trust?
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: 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 improving communication between nonprofits and their community first.
Q: Am I eligible to receive advised grants?
A: Please read the For Nonprofits subsection of "Donation Processing" in our Terms of Service.