Terms of use

These are the terms on which you use Veridonate and give through it. They are written to be read. Last updated September 30, 2026.

Draft under legal review. Today every gift is made on the charity's own website. Giving through a partner charity opens once the partner is signed and these pages are final.

What Veridonate is

Veridonate is a website run by a for-profit company that helps people check charities and give to them. It is not a charity, and it never receives or holds a gift. Today the Give button takes you to the charity's own website, where you give to the charity directly. Later, gifts made through the site will go to a partner charity, a public charity recognized under section 501(c)(3), which will be the legal recipient of the gift, issue the tax receipt, and pay the money on to the charity or fund you chose.

Checks and ratings are information, not advice

Every check, score and figure on the site is drawn from public records: IRS files, the charity's own tax returns, state lists and sanctions lists. Each result names its source and the date of the record. Records can be late, incomplete or wrong, and we can misread them. A "passes our checks" result means the public records show nothing against the organization on the date shown. It is not a guarantee of anything, and a caution or a low score is not an accusation. Ratings are our opinion, reached by the published method at how we rate, and the method changes; the version is printed with every rating. Nothing here is legal, tax or investment advice. Whether a gift is deductible for you depends on your own circumstances.

If you are connected with a charity and believe something on its page is wrong, write to the address on our About page or use the form on the charity's page. A person reads every message and we correct mistakes promptly, with the correction noted.

Cause funds

A cause fund is a published list of charities and a split, produced by the rules at how funds work. A gift to a fund is a gift to the partner charity with a recommendation to split it as published. The partner keeps the legal discretion over grants that the tax rules require and follows the published split. Holdings change when the rules say so, and every change is listed.

Giving today: on the charity's own website

A charity that passes our checks has a Give button. It takes you to the website the charity names on its own tax return, or to a page for giving that we have checked belongs to that website. Before you leave we show you the address.
Your gift is made to the charity, on its website, under its terms and its privacy policy. The charity takes the payment and sends your tax receipt. Refunds and questions about the gift are for the charity.
Veridonate takes no fee, no tip and no part of your gift, is paid nothing by the charity for sending you, and never sees your payment details.
We count how many times each Give button is used, and tell the charity's website that the visit came from Veridonate. We do not learn whether you gave, or how much.
Websites change hands and change address. We check the links donors use most, but before you give, look at the address in your browser and make sure the page names the charity you chose.

Giving through the site, when it opens

The whole amount you enter as your gift goes to the partner charity for the charity or fund you chose, less only the payment processing cost shown to you before you confirm, unless you choose to cover it.
A tip to Veridonate is optional, off by default, shown separately, and is not a charitable gift and not tax-deductible. It pays for the checks, ratings and this site.
Monthly gifts repeat until you cancel, which you can do at any time from your account; the cancellation takes effect before the next charge.
Payment details are collected by the partner charity's payment processor on its own pages; Veridonate never sees card or bank numbers.
Gifts are not refundable once received by the partner charity, except where the law requires it or a gift was made by mistake and the partner has not yet paid it on. Ask at the address on our About page without delay.
If the charity you chose cannot be paid (for example it loses its tax-exempt status before the grant is made), the partner charity pays your gift to a similar charity in the same cause and we tell you.
Matching gifts from sponsors are paid by the sponsor to the partner charity while the sponsor's budget lasts; a match is not guaranteed.

Charities listed on the site

Checks and ratings are published for every US charity in the public records, with no consent needed, in the same way a newspaper may report public filings. The Give button only links to the charity's own website. When gifts are taken through the site, every giving page will say whether the charity has confirmed it wants them. A charity may ask for its Give button to be removed at any time, and a request from an address at its own domain takes effect at once. See how we verify.

Your account and your conduct

You may use the site only for its purpose: checking charities and giving. You may not scrape it beyond the published API and its limits, try to break into it, use it to harass any charity or person, or present our checks or ratings as an endorsement in a way that misleads. You are responsible for keeping the sign-in links we email you private.

Stories

Stories on the site are written by us from published sources named on each story, and are approved by a person before they appear. They describe real work by real charities. If you are the subject of a story, or hold rights in something it quotes or shows, and want it changed or removed, write to the address on our About page and we will act the same day.

Limits on our liability

The site is provided as it is. To the extent the law allows, Veridonate is not liable for a loss that comes from relying on a check, rating, story or estimate, from an error in a public record, from the acts of the partner charity, a payment processor or any charity, or from the site being unavailable. Where liability cannot be excluded it is limited to the tips you have paid us in the twelve months before the claim.

Changes and law

We may change these terms; the date at the top moves and, for changes that matter to people with an account, we email. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of [state], and disputes are heard in its courts. [Registration statements required by state charitable-solicitation laws go here.]