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Refund Donations

Most donations you receive can be refunded, but not all of them.

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Written by Roderick Sang

Refund Donations Made Through Stripe

Stripe handles the majority of all Give Lively donations, both recurring and one-time. Since they update their menus often it's best to get refund instructions from their own article on the subject.

Here is the link to the Stripe article on how to issue refunds.

Refund Donations Made Through PayPal or Venmo

To issue a full or partial refund to your donors:

  1. Log in to the PayPal Merchant Dashboard.

  2. Click the “Activity” menu item in the top navigation. Then, under “Transactions,” click on “All Transactions”.

  3. On the “Transactions” page, search for the desired payment using the provided filters, such as your donor’s email address. Helpfully, “Recurring payment from” appears in the “Description” field.

  4. Click on the desired line item to go to its “Transaction details”.

  5. Click on “Issue a refund” and follow the remaining instructions.

While there are no additional fees to refund a charge, the fees from the original charge are not returned. If you have any questions, please refer to PayPal’s FAQ.

Refund Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) Grants

Refunds are not possible on DAF grants.

Before any DAF grant is sent to a nonprofit, DAF donors get a notification from their DAF provider confirming the grant request for a desired dollar amount to be sent to a chosen organization. At this stage, if the grant was made in error or the donor sees a mistake, the donor can cancel the grant directly through the DAF provider portal. However, any confirmed grant disbursed by a DAF provider is not returnable.

If you believe you might be missing a grant you can contact Chariot for troubleshooting, including marking a grant as canceled.

Refund Donations Made Through Shift4

Shift4 is a payment processor that isn't available to all nonprofits yet. You can learn more about it through this page on our website.

To issue a full or partial refund to donors:

  1. Log in to the Shift4 dashboard.

  2. Click on "Charges” within the left-side navigation list. Then, under “Charges,” click on “All charges”.

  3. On the “Charges” page, search for the desired payment using the provided filters, such as the donor’s email address, name or the last 4 digits of the card.

  4. Click on the desired line item to go to charge details.

  5. Click on “Refund” button on the top right-side and enter the amount to be refunded.

While there are no additional fees to refund a charge, the fees from the original charge are not returned.

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