PayPal Stories Archive

At PayPal we are committed to our mission to democratize financial services for people all over the world.  One of our longtime core efforts is the work we do to harness the power of our global payments platform to increase the amount of consumer giving to charities around the world. We are proud of what we have been able to accomplish and the contributions we have made.

 

PayPal works with PayPal Giving Fund to put forward campaigns that encourage our customers to give, and together we help popular internet businesses to create secure and easy ways for people to give to charities as a part of their daily life. PayPal Giving Fund receives donations through these customer giving programs, provides donation and donor reports to charities, administers tax benefits for donors, delivers donations, and handles legal registration requirements. Through PayPal Giving Fund, we enable people to seamlessly support their communities and the causes for which they feel most passionate.  

 

We recently became aware of a lawsuit related to the PayPal and PayPal Giving Fund holiday campaign, which we are carefully reviewing, and we believe is misleading. We are fully prepared to defend ourselves vigorously in this lawsuit and wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few facts related to PayPal Giving Fund and the important work it does to support donors and charities.  

 

Contrary to the lawsuit’s allegations, PayPal Giving Fund has not redirected any of the charitable gifts donated during the holiday campaign to charities not selected by the donor.

 

PayPal processed $971 million in charitable donations during the most recent holiday giving season. The vast majority of these donations were made directly from donors to charities around the world through PayPal products located on charities’ websites. Such donations are deposited directly into the nonprofit’s PayPal account. PayPal Giving Fund plays no role in the movement of these funds.

 

Donations to PayPal Giving Fund in the 2016 holiday giving season made up only a very small fraction, approximately 1%, of the total donations PayPal processed for charities in that time.

 

Due to the success of past holiday giving campaigns and in response to donor demand, in late December 2016 we partnered with Guidestar to expand the list of charities that could receive contributions during our annual holiday campaign to include a very large list of U.S. charities. Many of these charities are not already enrolled in PayPal Giving Fund. We recognize that it is important for donors to be able to contribute to the causes that mean most to them and that more choices mean a bigger positive impact on the charitable sector, so we view the inclusion of this expanded list of charities as providing a great opportunity for charities and donors and PayPal Giving Fund alike.

 

After PayPal Giving Fund receives a gift intended for a charity that is not yet enrolled, we notify the charity about the gift and invite them to enroll. We make multiple attempts to contact unenrolled charities on a monthly basis for at least six months, via email, letter and, in some cases, phone calls. We are still engaged in this process for certain unenrolled charities for which funds were selected by donors during our 2016 holiday giving campaign.

 

While this outreach process is underway, all donations are placed in a secure and segregated, non-interest bearing account maintained by PayPal Giving Fund.

 

Once a charity enrolls in PayPal Giving Fund, donations will be granted to them in PayPal Giving Fund’s next scheduled donation delivery, which happens around the 25th of each month. They will also provide donor contact data to the charity unless the donor has chosen to remain anonymous.

 

We are proud of the PayPal Giving Fund program and the significant positive impact this program has had on giving and charities around the world for many years.