(Last updated on August 12, 2021)
About Our Directory
We believe that a wide array of charity choices is central to increasing overall charitable giving. As such, we provide donors with a large directory of charities to which PayPal Giving Fund may grant funds. All donations are made to PayPal Giving Fund, an IRS-registered 501( c )(3) public charity (Federal Tax ID: 45-0931286).
The PayPal Giving Fund directory includes Participating Nonprofits (hereinafter "enrolled charities") that have opened a PayPal business account, become a PayPal Confirmed Charity, agreed to the PayPal Giving Fund Nonprofit User Agreement.
On certain partner programs, the directory may also include unenrolled charities that have not agreed to the PayPal Giving Fund Nonprofit User Agreement terms. We receive information about the unenrolled charities through our partnership with GuideStar, a 501( c )(3) public charity that collects, organizes, and presents information about nonprofits in an easy-to-understand, neutral format. Some charities opt out of GuideStar sharing their information with third parties, and we do not receive information about these organizations from GuideStar.
Inclusion within the PayPal Giving Fund directory requires:
Inclusion in our directory is not a guarantee of the charity’s compliance with the registration requirements of individual US states.
Removal of a Charity from our Directory
As a public charity itself, PayPal Giving Fund retains ultimate discretion over all donations it receives and reserves the right to conduct additional vetting of charities in our directory on an ongoing basis. For example, PayPal Giving Fund may investigate suspicious activity, and may remove any charity from its directory based on the outcome of such investigation. PayPal Giving Fund may remove any charity from its directory if it determines that the charity promotes violence, hate, or racial intolerance, or is engaged in money laundering or other illegal activities. As part of its ongoing review and monitoring process, PayPal Giving Fund removes charities from its directory that are found not to be in good standing with individual US states, such as California. PayPal Giving Fund also confirms through regular checks of GuideStar data that the above inclusion standards continue to be met, and PayPal Giving Fund removes charities that appear on OFAC lists or lose their charitable status from its directory.
As PayPal Giving Fund's payments processer, PayPal may request that PayPal Giving Fund remove any charity from its directory for breach of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy or other relevant policy or regulatory obligation. In addition, from time to time, PayPal Giving Fund may enter into agreements with merchant partners to enable customer giving programs through their own websites. Such partners may choose to remove charities from their websites and programs at any time. Finally, a charity may request to be removed from PayPal Giving Fund's directory and merchant partner websites and programs at any time by contacting PayPal Giving Fund.
Delivery of Donations to Charities within our Directory
We take multiple steps to grant funds to charities recommended by our donors. However, the listing of a charity in our directory is not a guarantee that it will ultimately receive funds from PayPal Giving Fund's fundraising programs. In the rare event that we determine not to grant funds to a charity recommended by a donor because they are no longer tax exempt or for some other reason, we will seek an alternative charity from the donor and reassign those funds to the alternative charity designated by the donor pursuant to the Donation Delivery Policy. The tax-deductible status of the original donation does not change because PayPal Giving Fund is the charitable organization of record for the original donation.
How Funds are Used by Charities
PayPal Giving Fund makes unrestricted grants and does not verify how a charity uses funds it receives from PayPal Giving Fund, and assumes no responsibility with respect to the use of funds. Donors may obtain information about the charities' programs and use of funds by consulting their profiles as presented in the customer giving programs we enable and/or the charity's website.