Frequently Asked Questions

Chariot Gift Processing is a unified platform that enables nonprofits to streamline the processing of offline donations from multiple sources including Donor-Advised Funds, fundraising platforms, and physical checks.

Instead of managing separate portals, banking connections, and reconciliation processes for each payment source, Chariot provides a single unified API and dashboard to process all your offline gifts.

Chariot Gift Processing is designed for nonprofit organizations that:

• Receive donations from multiple Donor-Advised Fund sponsors
• Use multiple fundraising platforms
• Process physical checks from donors
• Want to unify gift data from disparate sources
• Need to integrate donation data with their CRM or accounting systems
• Want to reduce manual reconciliation work

Organizations of all sizes can benefit, from small local nonprofits to large national organizations.

DAFpay is a donor-facing checkout solution that enables individual donors to make grants from their Donor-Advised Funds at the point of online donation.

Chariot Gift Processing is a nonprofit-facing backend solution that unifies the processing of all offline donations after they’ve been initiated.

Many nonprofits use both:

• DAFpay for online donor checkout
• Gift Processing for unifying all offline gift data from DAFpay and other sources

The onboarding process for nonprofits is as follows:

The verification process typically takes 3-10 business days.

Please visit our pricing page for more information.

A Payment Source is a segregated address for receiving donations from a specific source. Payment Sources can be:

Electronic

• Unique routing number and account number
• Used for receiving electronic transfers
• Examples: Dedicated accounts for each DAF sponsor, portals, etc.

Physical (Lockbox)

• Dedicated mailing address
• Used for processing physical checks
• Examples: PO Box for direct mail campaigns

All Payment Sources deposit to your same Financial Account, but they maintain separate tracking for reconciliation.

There’s no hard limit on the number of Payment Sources you can create. Nonprofits can manage their payment sources in their dashboard.

Payment Sources cannot be deleted if they have historical deposits or donations. This preserves your audit trail and reconciliation history.

If you no longer want to use a Payment Source, you can stop directing payment sources to it and it will become inactive over time.

Deposit: A transfer of money that arrives at a Payment Source. One deposit may contain multiple donations.

Donation: An individual charitable gift from a donor. Multiple donations can be included in a single deposit.

Example: A portal sends you a weekly electronic transfer of $10,000 containing 50 individual donations. This would be:

• 1 Deposit for $10,000
• 50 Donations with individual donor attribution

Donor attribution is unified across all payment sources:

• Donor name, email, and contact information
• Gift amounts (gross, net, and fees)
• DAF account details and grant letters
• Platform information and platform fees
• Corporate match information

Yes. Use the Update Donation endpoint to update:

• Purpose (how the donor intended the gift to be used)
• Note (additional information about the donation)
• Attribution (donor information)

You cannot update the amounts or fees as these reflect the actual transaction that occurred.

Use the Properties API to assign custom properties to donations:

This enables you to:

• Map to your CRM’s custom fields
• Track internal campaign codes
• Add processing notes
• Maintain your own metadata

Properties are indexed and searchable, making it easy to filter and report on donations with specific property values.

In-Network Donations (from Chariot Disbursements): Instant - donations appear immediately

ACH Transfers: 1-2 business days from when the payment source initiates the transfer

Checks: 1-3 business days from when the check arrives at the lockbox (deposit to your account takes an additional 3-5 business days)

Donation data is available via API as soon as Chariot receives the transfer, even before funds have fully settled.

When you’re ready to move funds to your external bank account, use the Outbound Transfers API:

Outbound Transfer Timeline:

• Day 0: Create outbound transfer via API or dashboard
• Day 2-3: Funds arrive in your external bank account

The typical integration flow:

1. Subscribe to webhooks for donation.created events
2. Receive webhook when a new donation is created
3. Retrieve donation details via the API
4. Map fields to your CRM’s data model
5. Create or update constituent records in your CRM
6. Assign properties back to the Chariot donation for two-way sync

Many nonprofits build this integration themselves or work with their CRM consultant to set it up.

Chariot also offers pre-built integrations for popular CRM systems. Contact support@givechariot.com to learn more.

Chariot automatically de-duplicates donations based on unique identifiers provided by the payment source.

If you encounter a suspected duplicate:

1. Check the donation’s artifacts array for source files
2. Compare effective dates and amounts
3. If truly duplicate, mark one with a property to exclude from reporting
4. Contact support if you need assistance identifying duplicates

If a deposit is returned (e.g., an ACH transfer is rejected):

1. The Deposit status changes to failed
2. The associated Donations remain in your system
3. A deposit.returned webhook is sent
4. Funds are debited from your account if they had settled

You should:

• Review the returned deposit and reason
• Contact the payment source to resolve the issue
• Update your systems to reflect the failed deposit

Contact support@givechariot.com if you need help resolving returned deposits.

Yes. Chariot maintains rigorous security standards:

• Bank-level security: Chariot partners with Column N.A., a nationally chartered bank
• Encryption: All data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest (AES-256)
• Compliance: SOC 2 Type II certified
• Access controls: Role-based permissions and audit logging
• PCI compliance: For any payment card data handling

Read more about our security practices.

Yes. Chariot is a financial technology company, not a bank. Chariot Accounts come with a Demand Deposit Account through our banking services partner, Column N.A., Member FDIC.

Deposits in Chariot Accounts are eligible for FDIC insurance up to $250,000 per depositor, for each insurable capacity in which the account is held.