GlobalGiving Guaranteed is a groundbreaking new program that guarantees GlobalGiving online donors a positive giving experience. The guarantee is the first program of its kind in the US and covers contributions up to $10,000.

GlobalGiving Guaranteed is a way to increase accountability to donors, strengthen our own responsiveness, and create a critical feedback loop to find out more about what our donors want.

How It Works

Any donor who makes an online contribution at GlobalGiving.org and is not satisfied with their giving experience may invoke the guarantee by phone or email. Subsequently GlobalGiving will refund the donation in the form of a gift certificate equal to the value of the original donation, which the donor can contribute to a different project on the site. The Guarantee can be activated at any time within a year after the original donation has been made, up to $10,000 per year, per donor.

Anyone making an online donation can take advantage of the Guarantee. However, employees and their immediate families, GlobalGiving Board members, Project Leaders, staff of project organizations, board members of those organizations and the family members of these persons are not eligible.

Why a Voucher vs. Cash Back?

For legal reasons, GlobalGiving must award a voucher, instead of cash back, to any donor invoking the guarantee. Here's why: For a donor to receive the benefit of a tax deduction, the IRS requires there be a clear transfer of "control and discretion" of the funds to GlobalGiving. U.S. laws and regulations prevent any 501(c)3 organization from giving up this control and discretion.

Further, once a donor has claimed tax deductibility, "reversing" it is problematic, particularly if the donation is made in one year and the guarantee is called in the following year. For these reasons, we are issuing a voucher equal to the amount of the original donation.

We will continue to monitor these laws and regulations with a view toward making GlobalGiving Guaranteed the most comprehensive possible.

Project Accountability

GlobalGiving works with a network of about 40 highly respected partner organizations that vet, and vouch for, projects on GlobalGiving. Project Leaders go through a rigorous application process before they are allowed to post projects on the GlobalGiving website, and must abide by standardized compliance measures for the duration of the project. Our program team has created a remediation process that outlines how GlobalGiving will work with projects to address issues that have been raised when donors have "called" the guarantee.

If you have questions about GlobalGiving Guaranteed, please contact us.