Where your fees go — and how to lower them.
Every dollar of fee on your Community Support Fund or Social Impact Campaign pays for something specific: the platform you run on, the fiscal sponsor who makes your donations tax-deductible, the processor who moves the money, and the bank that pays out your disbursements. This page walks through each fee, shows you what a real donation looks like end-to-end, and lays out the levers you can pull to keep more of every dollar working for your mission.
What your fees actually pay for
A real 501(c)(3) behind every donation
Rekonect is your fiscal sponsor. That means donors get a tax-deductible receipt, you don’t need your own 501(c)(3), and a real charitable entity holds legal responsibility for the funds.
The platform that runs your campaign
Donation pages, donor receipting, recurring gifts, team pages, reporting, exports, dashboards, support — everything you’d otherwise stitch together from five different tools.
Payment processing that just works
Credit cards, digital wallets, ACH, and donor-advised funds — all processed through enterprise-grade rails with PCI compliance, fraud protection, and chargeback handling built in.
Real banking for real disbursements
Your fund has a dedicated banking sub-ledger through Crowded. Approved disbursements go out by ACH to recipients you specify — no waiting weeks for a check to be cut.
The fee schedule
All fees are calculated on the gross donation amount and deducted before crediting your fund balance — except the disbursement fee, which is taken on the way out. Where a donation triggers multiple fees, they combine.
| Fee | Rate | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Platform Fee | 6.5% (tiered — see below) |
BrightLeaf Giving — the donation pages, dashboards, donor management, reporting, and support that run your campaign. |
| Fiscal Sponsor Fee | 2% | Rekonect — your 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor. Charitable receipting, compliance oversight, fund administration. |
| Payment Processing — Card & Wallet | 3.5% | Credit card, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay. Industry-standard processor cost. |
| Payment Processing — ACH | 1% | Direct bank transfer. Much cheaper than card — encourage your donors to use it. |
| Payment Processing — DAFPay | 3% | Chariot / DAFPay and similar donor-advised fund processors. |
| Disbursement Fee | 2% | Crowded Banking — ACH disbursement to your recipients. Deducted at time of disbursement, not on donation. |
| Off-System Donation Fee | 8% | Donations received outside the platform (Zelle, Venmo, direct transfer, etc.) that have to be manually recorded and receipted. |
Disputed transactions (chargebacks) carry a $35 fee per dispute, charged when one occurs.
How this compares
Most fundraising platforms charge less on paper — and then charge you everywhere else. Here’s the honest comparison.
- Lower headline fee, but you need your own 501(c)(3)
- Or use their sponsor — and pay an extra fiscal sponsor fee on top
- Card processing passed through at cost (still 3%+)
- Monthly subscription, sometimes setup fees
- Disbursements by check, 2–4 week wait
- Tip prompts that pressure your donors
- Support: email, sometime next week
- Fiscal sponsorship is included — no separate 501(c)(3) needed
- One fee schedule, no surprise add-ons or upsells
- ACH at 1% — most platforms don’t even offer it
- No subscription, no setup fee, no minimums
- ACH disbursements direct to recipients, fast
- Optional donor-cover toggle — keep your full rate
- Real humans, real response times
Five ways to lower your effective rate
The headline rate is the ceiling, not the floor. These are the levers — most CSFs and SICs end up well below their stated fee schedule once they pull a couple of them.
Let your donors cover the fees
Every CSF and SIC donation page includes an opt-in for the donor to cover the processing fee, the platform fee, both, or neither. The default presentation is friendly and unobtrusive — but in practice the majority of donors say yes, especially when the campaign explains where the money goes.
- Donor covers processing fee only — adds ~3.6% to their gift on card, ~1% on ACH. Reduces processor cost burden on your fund.
- Donor covers platform fee only — adds ~7% to their gift (or whatever tier applies). Keeps more of the platform’s headline rate.
- Donor covers both — adds ~11% on card, ~8% on ACH. Only the small fiscal-sponsor fee comes off your end.
- Donor covers neither — donation processes normally; all fees come off the top.
Pro tip: in your campaign description, mention the fee-cover option directly. Something like “a small box at checkout lets you add the processing fee so 100% of your gift reaches our work” can lift cover-rates significantly.
Bank transfer beats card — by 2.5%
ACH processing is 1%. Card processing is 3.5%. For a $1,000 donation, that’s $25 staying in your fund instead of going to the processor. For $10,000, it’s $250. This is the single easiest line item to lower.
- Promote ACH for major gifts. When a donor is giving four or five figures, mentioning ACH directly in your ask saves them money too (if they’re covering the fee) and saves you money either way.
- Recurring donations work great over ACH. Monthly donors who pay by ACH avoid the card-decline-on-renewal problem and save you the processing fee every month.
- For donors who insist on card — totally fine. Card is what most donors expect; the 3.5% is well within industry norms.
DAFs cost 3% — and unlock a different donor base
If any of your major donors have a donor-advised fund (Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, Vanguard Charitable, community foundation DAFs, etc.), they can give from it directly through DAFPay on your donation page. Processing is 3% — but the bigger story is reach.
- DAF gifts skew larger. A donor with a DAF is typically planning their giving annually and often gives 5–10× what they’d give from a checking account.
- The donor experience is one click. No new account, no entering card details. They authenticate to their DAF provider and the gift transfers.
- Tax-deductibility is already settled on the donor’s end (when they funded the DAF), so the receipting flow is even cleaner.
Don’t trigger the off-system fee
Donations that arrive outside the donation page — a Zelle from a relative, a Venmo, a wire transfer to the wrong account — carry an 8% fee. That’s the real cost of manually reconciling and receipting a donation we didn’t expect, and we’d much rather you not pay it.
- Always share the donation page link. If a donor asks “what’s the best way to give?” — that’s the answer.
- If a donor really wants to send by check or wire, contact us first. We can usually set up an in-system entry that lets the donation come in without the 8% surcharge.
- Group giving (sponsored events, third-party fundraisers) works best when funneled through a team page or campaign URL rather than collected separately and forwarded.
Bigger gifts pay a lower platform fee
The 6.5% platform fee is the rate for donations under $1,000. As individual gifts get larger, the rate steps down — sliding all the way to 3.5% at $25,000+. This is calculated per donation, not on annualized totals, so a single $5,000 gift gets the lower tier automatically.
Platform fee — by donation size
The platform fee is tiered to the size of each individual donation. The rate that applies is determined by the donation amount.
| Donation amount | Platform fee rate |
|---|---|
| $1 – $999 | 6.5% |
| $1,000 – $4,999 | 5.5% |
| $5,000 – $24,999 | 4.5% |
| $25,000+ | 3.5% |
A $100 donation, six ways
All amounts shown are what lands in your fund balance after fees. Disbursement fees come off when you pay out, separately — they’re not shown here.
| Scenario | Donor pays | Fees | You receive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Card — donor covers nothing The default if nobody opts in |
$100.00 | $12.00 6.5 + 2 + 3.5 |
$88.00 |
| Card — donor covers processing | $103.63 | $12.44 6.5 + 2 + 3.5 |
$91.19 |
| Card — donor covers platform | $106.95 | $12.83 6.5 + 2 + 3.5 |
$94.12 |
| Card — donor covers both The common opt-in result |
$111.11 | $13.33 6.5 + 2 + 3.5 |
$97.78 |
| ACH — donor covers nothing | $100.00 | $9.50 6.5 + 2 + 1 |
$90.50 |
| ACH — donor covers both Best everyday case |
$108.11 | $10.27 6.5 + 2 + 1 |
$97.84 |
| DAFPay — donor covers nothing | $100.00 | $11.50 6.5 + 2 + 3 |
$88.50 |
When a donor “covers” a fee, they pay slightly more than the headline fee — because adding $X to the donation increases the gross, which makes every fee a little bigger. The fiscal sponsor fee always comes off the gross regardless, so even on “donor covers both” you’ll see a small deduction.
Common questions
Are these fees deducted before or after my donor’s tax receipt?
The tax receipt is for the full amount the donor paid — including any fees they elected to cover. Fees are what Rekonect spends to receive and process the gift; they don’t reduce the donor’s deductible amount.
What if I receive a check anyway?
Mailed checks aren’t accepted as a standard donation method — we require ACH instead, which is faster, cheaper, and avoids the lost-in-the-mail problem. If a donor has truly no way to give other than by check, contact us before they send it and we’ll work out an alternative.
Why is there a separate disbursement fee?
Crowded, the bank that holds your fund balance, charges 2% to actually move money out to a recipient. That’s a real cost paid to a real bank, and it’s flat regardless of whether you disburse weekly or once a year. The upside: you can disburse to anyone you want, by ACH, without us cutting checks.
Do recurring donations get charged the platform fee every time?
Yes — each recurring instance is treated as its own donation, with the same fee structure as a one-time gift of the same amount. The tier for a recurring gift is based on the amount of each individual installment, not the lifetime total.
Can I pass the disbursement fee on to the recipient?
That’s up to you — the disbursement fee comes off the gross disbursement amount. If you disburse $1,000, the recipient gets $980 and Crowded gets $20. You can communicate this to recipients in advance, or gross up the disbursement so they receive exactly the amount you intended.
What happens if a donor’s card is charged back?
The $35 disputed transaction fee is deducted from your fund balance, along with the original donation amount being reversed. Chargebacks are rare on charitable donations, but they do happen — usually when a donor doesn’t recognize the line item on their statement. The best prevention is clear, recognizable campaign branding on your donation page.
Will these fees ever change?
The fee schedule can change with reasonable advance notice (the Modification of Policies consent you signed during application covers this). When changes happen, you’ll get an email well before they take effect, and they only apply to future donations — never retroactively.
We’d rather you ask than guess.
If you’re looking at a particular donation in your dashboard and the fee breakdown doesn’t match what you expected, or you have a major gift coming in and want to plan the lowest-cost path — message us. We answer in business hours, usually same-day.
Contact supportOr browse the help center for more guides.