PayPal launches Grant Payments, enabling charities to quickly receive funds from Grantmakers

PayPal Holdings, in partnership with National Philanthropic Trust (NPT) and Vanguard Charitable announced Grant Payments, a new product that enables Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) sponsors, community foundations and other grantmakers to deliver grants to charities quickly and electronically via PayPal.

Grant Payments will enable charities to receive grants shortly after the funds have been approved by the grantmaker. Both grantmakers and charities will have access to all available grant details, including donor information when provided, via a PayPal dashboard. Eligible and participating charities have been vetted per PayPal’s strong compliance standards.

„PayPal is committed to offering safe, secure and seamless products and services that drive efficiency for grantmakers and charities to digitally send and receive grant payments,” said Oktay Dogramaci, VP of Giving at PayPal. „By partnering with National Philanthropic Trust and Vanguard Charitable, PayPal Grant Payments will enable more than 200,000 PayPal confirmed charities to quickly receive grants electronically, streamlining and simplifying what has historically been a much more manual and drawn-out process.”

In 2020, DAF donors granted at historic levels. Grants from DAFs to qualified charities totaled an estimated $34.67 billion, representing a 27.0 percent increase compared to 2019 and the highest DAF grant increase in a decade.¹ In 2021 Vanguard Charitable sent out $1.78 billion,² and NPT sent out $6.4 billion³ in grants to charities; these payments were made almost entirely by check.

This process can be costly and slow, and the pandemic exacerbated delays in charities receiving grant checks due to disruptions with the postal service and the inability of some non-profits with less access to offices to retrieve checks. Grantmakers and non-profits alike can utilize Grant Payments to save time and resources and focus on fulfilling their respective philanthropic missions.

Rebecca Moffett, president of Vanguard Charitable: „Charities today need sustainable donor support more than ever. By streamlining the granting process, donors can make an even greater – and faster – impact on meaningful cause areas.”

„NPT is always interested in innovation and the pandemic amplified the need for non-profits to receive grant dollars more efficiently,” said Eileen Heisman, CEO of National Philanthropic Trust. „This solution does that and more. We believe that PayPal-based Grant Payments will simplify and accelerate how grantmakers can get funds to non-profits for mission-critical programs. The partnership with PayPal and Vanguard Charitable on this sector-wide solution could be a game-changer for other funders as well and has been enormously gratifying.” 

National Philanthropic Trust will begin to roll out Grant Payments this month, with Vanguard Charitable offering the solution in 2023. All eligible US charities with a confirmed charity status with PayPal can receive grants via PayPal from our partner grantmakers. Charities can review the grant information and accept or decline the grant easily within their PayPal dashboard.

_{¹2021 Donor-Advised Fund Report, National Philanthropic Trust. ²Annual Report 2021, Vanguard Charitable.³The 2021 Annual Report, National Philanthropic Trust.}

______________

Founded in 1996, National Philanthropic Trust (NPT) marked its 25^th Anniversary in 2021 as the largest national, independent public charity that manages donor-advised funds and one of the leading grantmaking institutions in the U.S. Since its founding, NPT has raised more than $40.5 billion in charitable funding and has made more than 541,000 grants exceeding $21.0 billion to non-profits around the world.