How to donate on Bright Funds

Content

• Donation Payment Methods
  • Can I donate from my DAF account on Bright Funds?
• How to make a one-time donation
• How to set up a monthly recurring donation
  • Can I add more nonprofits to my recurring donation?
• What's Next
• Can I donate goods through Bright Funds?

Donation Payment Methods

When you make a donation on Bright Funds, you will have a couple of options as to how to make your donation.

• Credit card donations made on Bright Funds are confirmed and will appear on your My Donations page once successful. 
• Bank Account (bank transfer) donations can take 7 days to complete on Bright Funds, as the donation must settle after the bank transfer is initiated. Once the bank transfer is successful, the donation will appear on your My Donations page.
  • For Matching Donations tied to Bank Account transactions: The matching donation will appear AFTER the bank transfer is confirmed as successful in the Bright Funds system, which can take several days.
• PayPal donations will complete once the connection is successful. Please note, once you sign into your PayPal account to make the donation, you must go back to Bright Funds to submit the donation. Once confirmed as successful, the donation and its match (if applicable) will appear on your My Donations page.
• Credits (only available under the one-time option) will be confirmed appear on your My Donations page once redeemed. 
• Payroll donations (if offered through your company) will appear on your My Donations page once your company confirms your donations has been applied to an upcoming payroll cycle.

Can I donate from my DAF account on Bright Funds?

Unless your DAF (donor-advised account) is attached to any of the above payment methods, you won't be able to donate on Bright Funds using your DAF account.

Please refer to our article on Donations to a donor-advised fund, where you can donate to your DAF (ex: Fidelity, Schwab), as most DAF managers are also registered as 501(c)(3) Public Charities.

How to make a one-time donation

1. Once you’ve found the nonprofit or Fund you’d like to support*, click the Donate button.
2. Select “One-time Donation,” and on the next page, choose your payment method and donation amount.
3. Include a designation (if needed) and select your Privacy setting for this donation. The Privacy you select will be shared with the receiving nonprofit(s).
4. Fill out your payment information and complete the donation!

How to set up a monthly recurring donation

1. Once you find the nonprofit or Fund you want to support, click the blue Donate button, and you’ll see two options pop up. Select Recurring Donation.
2. On the next page, you’ll select your payment method, donation amount, include a designation, and select the privacy setting for the donation.
3. That’s it! Your recurring donation will begin on the day you set it up, and will recur on the same day of each subsequent month. For example, if you set up a recurring donation on January 1, it will repeat February 1st, March 1st, and so on.

Notes

The recurring donation option is not available if you are donating to a nonprofit through a Campaign page.

The recurring donation option is not available at this time if you are based in Canada or the UK, and you plan to set up a recurring donation to your local country's nonprofit. We hope to have this available soon in the future.

Can I add more nonprofits to my recurring donation?

Yes! Any nonprofits added to your recurring donation between recurring dates will take place the next date. For example, if you set up a recurring donation January 1 and add other nonprofits January 15, that new donation will take place February 1.

Bright Funds will send you an email notification each time your donation recurs. 

What's Next

Bright Funds runs a reconciliation process for all donations at the start of each month, which your direct donation will be part of. If you opted to have your donation matched, that will be added to the reconciliation process once the matching funds are received from your company.

Check the address on your nonprofit's page. By default, that is where the donation will be mailed via paper check. You can read more information here in our "How Donations Are Sent" article. Please note, manual checks totaling $500 or more will have a $25 manual check fee applied for processing costs.

We strongly encourage nonprofits to register to receive monthly disbursements via ACH/wire, as that would void the check fee. Please reach out to your nonprofit and feel free to share this article with them if they would like to sign up: Signing up for ACH/EFT/Direct Deposit

Can I donate goods through Bright Funds?

At this time, Bright Funds can only process monetary donations. If you wish to donate items to a nonprofit, we encourage you to contact your nonprofit directly for more information.