Changes to Growfund’s Policy on Paper Checks and Tax Letters
January 22, 2021
| Re: Changes to Growfund paper checks and tax letter policy effective March 1 To the Growfund donor community, We at Growfund are committed to democratizing philanthropy for everyday donors; enabling individuals, organizations and giving circles to connect with over 1.8 million nonprofits on our platform. Our ultimate goal is to get more funds out to charity. We do that by continuing to offer features of higher priced donor-advised funds (DAFs) to our everyday givers with no minimum gifting requirements or account opening fees, allowing Growfunders to designate grants to whichever U.S. charity or giving circle they choose, along with continuing to offer investment options and other added value features. Due to changes exacerbated by COVID-19, we want to encourage our contributors to donate by electronic means in order to reduce risks and processing times that accompany paper and manual processing. In that vein, the following policy changes for Growfund giving circle contributors will be effective March 1: – We will continue to accept giving circle contributions by electronic methods (credit card and e-check) or inter-account transfer. We will no longer accept giving circle contributions by paper check. – We will continue to accept paper checks from registered individual Growfund users. Paper checks under $5000 designated to individual Growfund accounts will be assessed a $20 processing fee. We will continue to offer the option for e-checks and credit card contributions for all contributors. Individually registered Growfund users will also have the option to contribute via wire transfers and transfers from external DAFs. – We will require giving circle contributors to register for a free Growfund account if they would like to have access to tax letters for 2021 or any other of the features we offer, including statements and external DAF transfers. It’s free to open a Growfund account, and there is no minimum contribution requirement! Please take advantage or the opportunity and register to access all contributions, distributions, statements, and tax letter history in your dashboard. If you’d like to mail a paper check for deposit into your Growfund account, please do so before March 1. There are no fees to open and no minimum requirement. You can also easily make inter-account transfers to any giving circle of your choice. Open an individual Growfund account today. View our updated fee schedule. Fees for electronic methods of payment remain unchanged; all fees are applicable as of March 1, 2021 and will help us streamline the contributions and distributions process. We recognize all of the great contributions our individuals, organizations and giving circles are making to charities during this time of need. Please help us continue streamlining our services during these unprecedented times so we can distribute more funds to charity. We look forward to working more closely with you! Thank you for being part of the Growfund community. Best Regards, Melissa Cortes Director, Collective Giving Please get in touch with us at [email protected] |