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Donations Are Already Flowing Through Your Merchants. Here’s How to Capture That Volume.

July 17, 2025

In 2024, Americans sent an astonishing $592.5 billion to nonprofits, the second-highest total on record and a 3.3% jump from the year before. Yet, most of that money never touches a payment processor’s rails – it diverts into PayPal Giving Fund buttons, custom DAF portals, and niche fundraising apps while core processors quietly watch both traffic and revenue slip away.

The Two-Processor Problem

Walk through a modern merchant stack and you’ll find a split personality:

  • A platform for core commerce payments (Stripe, Adyen, etc.)
  • A platform for charitable donations (PayPal Giving Fund, Givebutter, etc.)

That donation lane is effectively a side road: settlements occur outside your reconciliation tools, data hides in other dashboards, and fee revenue goes to someone else.

The Missed Opportunity

  • Lost volume. Every checkout that redirects to a third-party donate button lowers your total payment volume (TPV) and the take rate attached to it.
  • Lower retention. Merchants end up managing two processors, which weakens stickiness to your platform.
  • Data gaps. Transactions processed off-platform break unified customer and payment reporting.

Change’s own market research shows that donation flows can add up to 3-5% of a retailer’s annual charge volume – often more during seasonal campaigns. That’s volume that processors are letting slip away today.

Why Building In-House Is Harder Than It Looks

Payment processors have the engineering muscle to move money, but charitable dollars come with regulatory baggage.

State registration hurdles

The state of California, thanks to AB 488, requires every online fundraising platform to register with the Attorney General, track each charitable transaction, and file annual reports beginning with activity from June 12 2024 forward.3 Similar regimes exist or are emerging in other states. This adds 

Flow-of-funds constraints

Donations must be segregated, often routed first to a donor-advised fund (DAF) before any commercial fees or revenue share can be taken.

Tax receipting and AML checks

Each gift needs an IRS-compliant acknowledgment, OFAC screening of both donor and recipient, and ongoing charity-good-standing monitoring.

Accounting complexity

Tracking cost basis, reversals, and multi-step disbursements strains finance teams already busy reconciling core payment flows.

Standing up bespoke donations infrastructure means new legal entities, bond postings, state filings, and months of valuable engineering time.

Change: A Direct-to-DAF Shortcut for Processors

Change plugs into existing payment rails, then settles every charitable dollar straight into Our Change Foundation, Change’s partner DAF. Processors inherit an instant donation product without the heavy lift. Here’s what payment processors can enjoy when they use Change:

  • Donations that once detoured to outside platforms now ride your rails, immediately boosting total payment volume and net dollar retention.
  • Optional platform or processing fees on each gift create a fresh revenue stream from purpose-driven transactions.
  • The donor-advised-fund structure handles tax receipts, regulatory filings, and global legal obligations so your team stays focused on core payments.
  • Automated IRS, OFAC, and 50-state watch-list checks keep fraud and sanctions risk in check.
  • Merchants tap into a directory of 1.3 million pre-vetted nonprofits without maintaining their own charity database.
  • A single API covers checkout capture, ledgering, and batched multi-currency disbursements worldwide.

Are you a payment processor?

Launch donation tools your merchants will love and see TPV and NDR grow.
Learn more

What a Processor-Powered Donations Product Looks Like

  1. Merchant opt-in. Your dashboard adds a “Donations” toggle. No new merchant account, no extra underwriting.
  2. Checkout prompt. Shoppers round up, add a fixed gift, or pledge loyalty points, all handled by the same gateway and risk tools you already run.
  3. Settlement. Funds clear with regular card batches, then auto-route to the DAF. Your platform fee (if any) is split automatically.
  4. Disbursement. Change remits grants to nonprofits on a schedule you choose (daily, weekly, monthly) and pushes receipts back to both merchant and donor.
  5. Reporting. Unified TPV now includes charitable dollars, and merchants export audit-ready ledgers right beside sales data.

Who’s a Fit?

Processors that serve consumer commerce stand to gain most because retail and food-service merchants run high-frequency campaigns. But corporate card, wallet, and BNPL providers can capture the same upside by converting loyalty points or cash-back balances into seamless charity gifts. 

Conclusion

Your merchants already inspire generosity. Right now, that generosity escapes to third-party tools, leaving your platform with lower TPV, thinner data, and none of the feel-good brand lift. 

By embedding Change’s direct-to-DAF engine, payment processors can ship a fully compliant donations product in weeks, reclaim the charitable volume they’re missing, and unlock fresh revenue… no new entities, no extra audits, no distractions from core payments. 

Turn every checkout into a chance to give, and make sure the dollars flow through your rails next time.

Works Cited

  1. https://www.axios.com/2025/06/25/charitable-giving-donations-rise-2024
  2. https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/paypal-consumer-fees
  3. https://www.dwt.com/insights/2024/06/california-ab-488-charitable-funds-rules-in-effect
  4. https://getchange.io/solutions/payment-processors
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