Question 1

What is Givelayer?

Accepted Answer

Givelayer gives a charity one page where someone who wants to help can understand the organisation and give in a few seconds. That is a branded giving profile, a short link and QR code for sharing it offline, embedded checkout for an existing website, and automated receipting. It is built for charities and nonprofits specifically, rather than being a general payments tool a charity has to adapt.

Question 2

Who can use Givelayer?

Accepted Answer

Any charity or nonprofit that is registered or formally recognised in its own country can claim a giving profile, a short link and a QR code today, free, wherever it is based. Accepting donations is separate and currently limited to organisations established in the United States. A charity outside the United States can set everything up now and switch payments on when its country opens.

Question 3

What does it cost to start?

Accepted Answer

Nothing. The free plan has no monthly fee, no setup fee and no contract, and it includes giving, receipts and monthly gifts. An optional Pro plan adds your own branding. When a donor adds the optional tip, that tip covers both our platform fee and the card processing, so your organisation receives the whole donation and pays nothing. When there is no tip, the platform fee is 2% and card processing is passed through at cost. The full breakdown, including a calculator, is on the pricing page.

Question 4

What is a gvy.to link?

Accepted Answer

gvy.to is Givelayer's short domain. Each charity gets a short, readable link to its giving page that fits in a bio, on a poster or under a QR code, and works the same in all three places. It points at your giving profile and can be shared before the profile is finished.

Question 5

Which countries can accept donations today?

Accepted Answer

The United States. Canada is next, and is waiting on registration rather than on engineering. Donors themselves can be anywhere: someone in any country can give to a supported charity, in their own currency.

Question 6

When will Canadian charities be able to accept donations?

Accepted Answer

Givelayer is in the process of registering as a Money Services Business with FINTRAC, which is what Canadian regulation requires before processing donations there. That registration is not complete, so no date is promised. The receipting is built to CRA rules and waiting on it. The Canada page takes an email address and is the first place the opening is announced.

Question 7

How quickly do funds reach my organisation?

Accepted Answer

Payouts go directly to your organisation's own bank account on a rolling basis, typically within two to three business days of a donation. Funds are never held by Givelayer: they sit in an account your organisation controls until they are paid out to you.

Question 8

How do refunds work?

Accepted Answer

A donor asks the receiving charity directly, and the charity's contact details are on every receipt. Requests inside 30 days of the donation are expected to be processed within 14 business days. If the charity does not respond in that window the donor can escalate to Givelayer, which may step in to help resolve it.

Question 9

Who issues the tax receipt, Givelayer or the charity?

Accepted Answer

The charity does. It is the registered organisation and therefore the legal donee, so it remains the legal issuer and is responsible for the accuracy of what the receipt says. Givelayer provides the automation that generates a compliant receipt on the charity's behalf and sends it the moment a donation is confirmed. For US organisations that means receipts built to IRS Publication 1771.

Question 10

Are receipts issued outside the United States?

Accepted Answer

Not yet. Automated receipting is provided only where Givelayer has confirmed compliance support, which today is the United States. Elsewhere the charity remains responsible for issuing whatever its own revenue authority requires. Canada is built and waiting on registration.

Question 11

Who owns the donor data?

Accepted Answer

The charity does. Givelayer processes donor data on the charity's behalf and the charity remains the controller of it. Donor data is not sold, and it is not used to market anything to your donors. If you leave, the records are yours to take.

Question 12

How is card data handled?

Accepted Answer

Card details are never stored on Givelayer's servers and do not pass through them. Payments run on PCI-DSS Level 1 infrastructure, which is the highest level defined by the card networks. The security page sets out the rest, including how organisations are separated from each other at the data layer.

The questions charities actually ask

Getting started

Donations and payouts

Receipts, data and security

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