Granting FAQs

No. GiveClear™ Foundation, the nonprofit organization that sponsors the BlueGive by Blue Trust account, will make all grant transactions on your behalf.

Yes, the minimum is $50

You can grant to any IRS-qualified public charity that’s in good standing with the IRS and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Churches and Universities can also receive gifts from a DAF and are not required to register with the IRS.

Some newer charities, churches, or universities may not be in our charity database. If this is the case, you can request to have the charity added via our charity submission request process. Here's an article with more information.

Our search feature only includes IRS-approved 501(c)(3) public charities. If your intended charity doesn’t appear in our search results, please contact the organization to inquire about their 501(c)(3) status and the official name they’ve registered with the IRS.

Additionally, GiveClear™ Foundation requires that grantees be listed in IRS publication 78. It will not make grants directly to: individuals; supporting organizations; private non-operating foundations; terrorist organizations or organizations that finance or support terrorism; organizations listed or affiliated with persons listed on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, as published by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control; or any other organization that it determines, at its sole discretion, is not an eligible grantee.

I do not see my charity, what do I do next? If you cannot find your charity on BlueGive, you may Submit a Charity Request through the platform.

First double check you cannot find the charity using the filters on the results page. There can be many charities with the same name so filtering by City, State, Zip Code or Cause may help identify the charity you are lookin for.

If you still cannot find the charity, you may Submit A Charity Request on the platform by filling in the Organization / Charity Name, along with any accompanying information that would help us identify the requested charity. The more information provided, the easier it will be for us to add the charity to BlueGive.

Confirmation of a successful submission will be emailed to you. Once the Charity is vetted and added to the system, we will add to your favorites and reach out via email letting you know the charity has been added.

If the charity with the provided EIN already exists, the system will prevent you from submitting the request. You will receive a notification in the bottom-left corner indicating that this EIN is already in our system.

Charity vetting can take up to two weeks. Once completed, you will receive confirmation from someone on our dedicated team confirming your charity is eligible to receive grants.

No. Account contributions are immediately eligible for itemized tax deductions, but you can’t claim deductions for your grant recommendations because the deduction has already happened when you made the contribution.

It’s a charitable organization that has filed an exemption application (Form 1023) with the IRS for tax-exempt status under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), and has received a determination letter indicating that it’s been approved.

All grant recommendations are reviewed to:

As grants are reviewed and approved, the grants are made to the approved charity.

Go to the account dashboard. Use the search feature to find and choose your favorite charity using the charity’s name or its federal employer identification number (EIN) (XX-XXXXXXX).

Choose “Grant” to enter the amount of your recommended grant, indicate if you want to make the grant on a recurring basis, and specify if you want to make your grant anonymously.

Choose “Grant” again to finalize the process.

Unfortunately, you cannot make third-party contributions to an external account using BlueGive at this time.

Subject to certain limitations, you can specify a special purpose for your grant when you make your grant recommendation. Keep in mind that you cannot make any grants to benefit yourself or your relatives.

Your grant recommendations must be made for charitable purposes from which no more than an incidental benefit is derived.

This means you can’t make any grants to attend an event, purchase tickets, or pay for auction items. You’re also prohibited from making grants with the agreement that goods or services will be provided in exchange.

No, you cannot make any split grants from a charitable account.

Any grant intended to pay for all or a part of a ticket to a charitable event will not be fulfilled. This policy is based on the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which includes rules for donor-advised funds.

No. While you can recommend grants to fulfill a nonbinding pledge, you cannot use a pledge to fulfill any of your binding legal obligations.

No. You cannot make grants to crowdfunding organizations that aren’t qualified as a public charity with the IRS. To support someone who’s participating in an activity for charity, you can recommend a grant to the charity itself.

No. You cannot make a grant to an educational institution to cover tuition for an individual. However, you can make grants to support a scholarship program that is administered by a qualified public charity.

No. You’re prohibited from making a grant that provides personal benefit that’s more than incidental.

No. You’re prohibited from making grants that will be used for lobbying purposes or to support a political campaign.

You cannot give directly to an international charity, however, you can recommend a grant to a U.S.-based charity that works overseas and can fulfill the intended charitable activity.

No. All grant checks are delivered by GiveClear™ Foundation, the nonprofit organization that sponsors the BlueGive by Blue Trust account.

Yes, you can choose to make your grant anonymously. Your chosen charity will receive the funds without any information about your name or address.

Unless you specify that you’d like to give your grant anonymously, your fund name and e-mail address will be provided to the grantee.

GiveClear™ Foundation, the nonprofit organization that sponsors the BlueGive by Blue Trust account, will distribute your grant via check or ACH payment.

Grant recommendations may take up to 10 business days to process and are subject to the approval of GiveClear™ Foundation, the nonprofit organization that sponsors the BlueGive by Blue Trust account.

The review time needed to process a grant recommendation may vary based on its purpose or the grant recipient. You can track the status of your grant recommendation in the account history.

If your selected charity doesn’t cash the grant check within 90 days, the check is automatically voided, and our customer support team is notified. We will then contact the charity to confirm the correct mailing address. Once verified, we will reissue the payment to the updated address on file. Additionally, we will inform the donor that the grant payment has been reissued.

Your grant may have been declined for the following reasons:

GiveClear™ Foundation’s EIN is # 81-3222963.

You can find receipts for all your charitable contributions under “Documents” on the account dashboard.

To track the status of any grant issued from the account, go to the "Give" page and click "View Grant History" at the top of the page.

Here you can view recent Grant Activity, Manage Scheduled Grants, and view Pending Attestations.

Click into a Grant to view the Grant Status including a timeline of each step in the process from submission to approval, processing, sent, and received.

If the Grant is in "pending" status, meaning the grant has been Submitted but not yet approved, then yes you can cancel the grant on the Grant History page.

However, a grant recommendation may not be reversed once it’s been approved by GiveClear™ Foundation, the non-profit organization that sponsors the account.

Typically, charities will have donors make grants to the home branch and specify in the grant purpose / notes which local chapter you want the donation to go.

Grants are eligible for Type 1, Type 2, and Functionally-Integrated Type 3 supporting orgs, and to private foundations. Grants are not allowed for Non Functionally-Integrated Type 3 supporting orgs and private non-operating foundations.

Your BlueGive Account Team has access to a Bulk Charity Submission tool that will assist in migrating one-time or recurring grants onto the platform when moving from another DAF platform.

Our Success Managers will recreate all gifts on behalf of a client for any number of grants. This feature prevents the need for an advisor or client from manually setting up multiple grants to charity, as each new grant requires the client to attest to its submission.

Once each grant is set up, clients will have the ability to "attest" to the validity of each grant in bulk, saving time and effort. In short, the process is now seamless for smoothly migrating existing DAFs & all recurring grants over to BlueGive.

Monthly, quarterly, annually. These options allow you to set up regular, automated grants to your chosen charities according to your preferred schedule.

Please reach out to care@bluegive.org to let the Support Team know of the issue. They will then reach out to the charity, confirm the correct address, and then void/reissue a check.

You will receive an email update at each of the following grant milestones:

Submitted: Your grant has been submitted for review.

Pending: The grant recommendation has been created, but the charity has not yet gone through the due diligence process.

Approved: Charity due diligence was completed and charity found to be eligible. In addition the grant note was reviewed for incidental benefit. The grant recommendation is then deemed approved

Processed: The grant money has been initiated to disbursement account; grant payments are prepared, reviewed, approved, and then released and sent to charity.

Received: The grant has been received by charity (the charity has cashed the check or the ACH payment has cleared their account)

Rejected: The request did not meet eligibility criteria.

Canceled: The user canceled the grant submission.

Grants paid by check will typically be received by charity within 15 business days from “Grant sent” date.

Grants paid by ACH will typically be received by charity within 3 business days from “Grant sent” date.

Be mindful that processing times may vary depending on verification requirements and the nonprofit’s eligibility.

Delays may occur due to additional nonprofit verification, incomplete information, or high grant volumes; you can contact support for an update.

Approval depends on the nonprofit’s tax-exempt status, compliance with IRS regulations, and alignment with DAF guidelines.

Your grant may be under review for nonprofit verification, additional documentation, or internal approval before disbursement.

We confirm the nonprofit’s 501(c)(3) status, good standing with the IRS, and adherence to DAF guidelines.

If the nonprofit is ineligible or requires more documentation, we will notify you with alternative options or next steps.

Processing times, postal delays, or nonprofit verification issues may impact delivery; contact support for a status update.

Yes, you will receive a confirmation email once the grant has been sent to the nonprofit.

While we confirm disbursement, we do not track how the nonprofit uses the funds; you may contact the nonprofit for details.

Verify the grant status in your account, and if it has been disbursed, ask the nonprofit to check their records; support can provide further assistance.

Yes, DAFs cannot fund personal expenses, political donations, or non-charitable activities, and the nonprofit must be a qualified 501(c)(3) organization.

If the nonprofit loses eligibility before disbursement, we will notify you and offer alternative options or a refund to your DAF account.

No. The address cannot be changed to reflect the specific program's address, as the general address must remain on the platform. However, if you'd like to donate to a specific program or mission, please include that information in the grant note, and the general fund will allocate the funds to the program you wish to support.

You can reach out to our support team via chat for assistance with any grant-related concerns.

Yes, email care@bluegive.com the donation amount and the charity and we will send you the check number.

If the charity needs to make changes to the bank account associated with their ACH, they can provide the updated wiring instructions to care@bluegive.com and one of our Support Team associates will update it accordingly.

To adjust the amount of recurring grants, you will first need to cancel the current grant and set up a new scheduled grant.

Checks will come from the GiveClear Foundation. To receive insight into estimated delivery date, you can view the grant status by going to Grant History and select the Grant to review where it is in the process.

To update the address of a charity, contact care@bluegive.com and provide the charity name, address, and EIN and we will update the address for you.

To delete a recurring grant, log in and go to Grant History > select the "Managed Scheduled Grants" tab. From here, you can edit the grant note, delete the scheduled grant and make any changes necessary using the pencil icon to the right.

Yes, to donate or make a grant to via ACH please reach out to care@bluegive.com and provide the charity name, EIN, and your main contact's name and email at the charity. If the charity has provided the accounting number and routing number for ACH, that will help as well.

From there, we will reach out to the charity and confirm they accept ACH and set it up. Once complete, you may make a grant via ACH.

To find the summary of your giving, you can go to your Grant History report or generate a Tax Receipt through your Documents > Tax Receipts tab.

Once a donation is created, a grant letter will be generated. This grant letter will have the fund name, donor's name, amount, contact email, and grant notes. If you wish to remain anonymous, the contact info and DAF donor will not be available.

We generally only accept grant recommendations to IRS-qualified public charities in good standing with the IRS. However, churches and universities can receive gifts from our donor-advised fund without IRS registration. If you cannot find the organization you're looking for, you can request to have it added through our charity submission process. This allows us to review and potentially add new organizations to our database.

No, you cannot change a grant already scheduled to be ACH. Please ensure the charity accepts ACH grants if you would like to donate via ACH. The instructions on how to complete this process are available in the Help Center resources.

Yes, please reach out to your advisor or care@bluegive.com and provide them with the Charity Name, Grant Amount, and Estimated time of the Grant and we will provide you with the grant letter from said donation.

If the local branch has its own EIN, you can request a new charity and add in the information to be approved and vetted. If there is no EIN associated with the local branch, you must donate to the organization associated with the EIN. However, in the granting section, you can select "Other" and add in the grant note which branch/location you would like your funds to go to. From there, it will be on the organization to distribute the donation to the respective branch you designated.

When someone donates to your campaign, you can see the Donor Name the Amount Donated, the Date Donated, and the Status of the donation under the Contributions section on the campaign itself.

To view your active campaigns, go to the Give tab and select the Campaigns report.

Pledges are acceptable so long as they are not legally binding. To ensure your grant is processed efficiently, please refrain from using the word “pledge” in the grant note, as it can be flagged by our operations team, requiring additional steps to confirm that the gift is not a legally binding pledge.

Unfortunately, there is no option to change the amount of a grant once it has been submitted. The only option is to cancel the submitted grant and create a new one with the updated amount.

If you'd like to donate to a specific program or mission, please be sure to include that information in the grant note and specify the purpose of the gift. When making the grant, select 'Other' for the purpose and enter the details of your grant in the Reason section. When the grant check is sent, we’ll include the grant letter with your information and grant note so the charity can properly distribute the funds as you wish.

Yes, the check will be issued from GiveClear Foundation, as they are the DAF sponsor. However, please note that we always send the grant letter along with the check, so the charity will know who the donor is.

If a recurring donation is made and there aren’t enough funds to continue, our system will detect this and send an email to the donor, notifying them that they need to fund their DAF account in order to continue the recurring grant.

If the charity is not set up with ACH, they receive donations via check. If you would prefer your donation to be sent via ACH, please provide the charity's name and EIN, and we will start the process to get them setup to handle ACH payments.

To speed up the grant receival process, setting up a charity to receive ACH payments will ensure a more timely delivery of your donation funds.

We don't provide physical grant receipts, but you can easily access and download tax receipts for all your charitable contributions through our platform. Simply go to your account dashboard and navigate to the "Documents" section. There, you'll find the option to download your tax receipts.

It's important to note that while contributions to your giving account are potentially tax-deductible, grant recommendations themselves are not. The tax receipt you download will reflect your contributions to the account, not the individual grants made to charities.

Typically, charities will have donors make grants to the home branch and specify in the grant purpose / notes which local chapter you want the donation to go. When creating the grant choose "Other" within the dropdown for Purpose of Grant section, then include the notes for the specific branch. From there, it is up to the charity to distribute those funds accordingly.

Currently, there is no way to find this information on the platform itself but you can reach via the chat feature and ask our support team to provide this information. Check out this article to view a list of charities that are currently setup to receive ACH payments.

Charity name

Charity's EIN (Employer Identification Number)

Main contact's name and email at the charity

If available, the charity's accounting number and routing number for ACH