How does this work?
Your donation makes possible what matters: a local initiative, a caregiver programme, research that wouldn't otherwise happen. Here's how it works — legally and in practice — so before you give, you know exactly what happens.
What happens to your donation?
Your donation goes to the OpenCharities Foundation. The Foundation becomes the owner of the amount the moment it arrives, and aims to spend it on the initiative you chose. That choice is your allocation wish on the initiative page. On the transparency page you can follow every euro — from arrival, through the Foundation Safe, to disbursement to the initiative.
What if the threshold isn't met?
Sometimes an initiative doesn't reach its threshold, or ultimately can't go ahead. When that happens, we don't refund. We deploy your contribution toward a comparable initiative within our mission, and we show on the platform exactly where it went. That way every euro keeps working for the kind of impact you gave for.
Who decides where the money goes?
The board of the OpenCharities Foundation makes the allocation decisions. For every initiative, we check in advance whether it fits our general-benefit objective, whether it's feasible, and whether proper accountability is possible afterwards. Only then does an initiative go live. When a threshold is reached, the board makes the explicit decision to disburse — never automatically. That discretion matters: without independent judgement, the Foundation would just be a pass-through, and that isn't how we want to work.
Why does it work this way?
The legal form — a gift with allocation wish — isn't a workaround, it's the foundation. Because of it, we operate as a foundation with a general-benefit objective, not as a payment service provider; we can apply for ANBI status and (once granted) pass the fiscal benefit on to donors; you don't have to trust a commercial platform to hold other people's money; and every euro can be publicly accounted for through the Foundation. All regulated services (fiat payments, crypto custody) run through licensed partners. The Foundation does what a foundation should do: carefully decide which initiatives serve the general interest.