The Growth of International Giving

Author: Matthew Nash, Executive Director, Blackbaud Giving Fund

Whether it is corporate foundations supporting local causes where their company has operations, diaspora who want to support charities at home, or employees that feel compelled to support disaster response like the latest terrible earthquake in Turkey and Syria, international giving is an integral part of workplace giving.

Vetting International Charities: A complicated past

In the past, international giving was complicated with only foundations or wealthy individuals that could afford to find deserving charities. They would have to vet each charity to assure they were viable and require reporting on how the funds were being used to support charitable purposes.

Equivalency Determination: A revolutionary turning point

In 2000, the Council on Foundations, a membership organization of U.S. grantmakers, established the International Grantmaking Project to address these challenges. The project’s members recognized the need for a standardized process for assessing the equivalency of non-U.S. organizations, and in 2002, the Council on Foundations developed a set of guidelines for equivalency determination. For this process a charity could demonstrate that they are essentially equivalent to a US-based 501 (c) (3), so that any US donor could receive a tax deduction for their donation. Once a charity is vetted through this process, it can be used to allow giving from an individual or a company. Equivalency determination requires the charity to demonstrate they are set up for charitable purposes by providing corporate documents, yearly financials, and proof that local laws support charitable causes as they are defined in the US. They also must submit themselves to sanctions screening.

Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) like The Blackbaud Giving Fund take advantage of equivalency determination. With this process in the hands of the DAF, companies and millions of individuals can give with confidence to a database of vetted international charities. Learn more about the benefits of leveraging a DAF for corporate giving in this blog: Demystifying Donor-Advised Funds

With millions of charities across the world, this is still an expensive and not very scalable approach.

Amplifying and Scaling Impact: Partnership create a promising future

We asked a simple question, “How can we create more choice for donors and reach more charities across the world?” The answer – Take advantage of what exists today and create partnerships!

In countries with a large demand for donors, we are setting up in-country charity partners who act as the last mile distributor of funds to foreign charities. These partners have vetted charities and understand the local landscape. By vetting these intermediaries, we open the doors for companies and individuals to give to charities they have vetted through local legal standards.

Journey of a Donated Dollar

Funds flowing from the U.S. to foreign charities

Click the image to enlarge. The Blackbaud Giving Fund disburses funds to YourCause charity partners. The local charity receives funds from GiveIndia, Charities Trust, CanadaHelps, HdS or Global Giving. Learn more about YourCause global capabilities here.

This network of partnerships creates speed and efficiency throughout the international giving process:

• navigating national laws

• putting funds directly in the nonprofit bank accounts
• reducing nonprofit administrative burden by handling tax receipting

Expanding the Ecosystem of Good

In addition, by combining the partner’s capabilities with scalable global payments processing, we are making it a lot simpler for employees and companies to grant internationally and expanding the number of vetted charities from 1000 to 115,000 and counting. With our payments processing partners we are improving the reporting on the status of grants, so companies, foundations, and employees know the funds are getting to the chosen charities.

This approach decreases the cost of giving so more money reaches charities and gives donors piece of mind that they are supporting legitimate charities. In other words, expanding the ecosystem of good.

Webinar: Introduction to Global Giving

We’re bringing together our giving partners for a panel discussion with Matthew Nash, Executive Director at the Blackbaud Giving Fund, as moderator and speakers from Haus Des Stiftens, Global Giving and CanadaHelps.

This webinar provides an introduction to the funds disbursement process behind giving internationally and will highlight how having a set of vetted charities gives companies and employees more choice in their giving.  We’ll dive into these topics below and save time at the end for questions from the audience.

• What is the role each partner plays in the global giving network?
• How corporate giving like matching gifts and grantmaking can amplify giving?
• Why having a partner with local knowledge and in-country compliance is so important?