Fundraise

General Donations Information

WAVES International Not-for-Profit Status

WAVES is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and to provide tax-deductible receipt for donations, we must follow these IRS regulations (Pub. 526):

• Monetary donations must be made directly to WAVES.
• Cash given or checks issued to individuals or his/her chapter are considered a personal gift and NOT a qualifying donation.
• To be able to utilize the tax law allowance, the individual taxpayer needs to use the Schedule “A” form when filing tax returns. Business donors will use their applicable forms to claim the benefit.
• Donations must be made by the person who wants to donate, especially if the donor wants the tax receipt.

Tax ID

WAVES non-profit Tax ID number has been issued by the IRS as a privilege, to allow us to provide tax receipts to donors. NON-PROFIT STATUS CAN BE REVOKED, so please consult us before using our Tax ID. Without our non-profit tax status, we can’t issue tax receipts, making it much harder for you to fundraise and impossible for us to get future grants.

The WAVES International Tax ID number can be used to solicit both in-kind and monetary donations from local businesses and vendors; however it should never be used to solicit donations for individual benefit, from national corporations and NEVER be used to open bank accounts for your chapter.

Please review the following list for the DOs and DON’Ts for using the Tax ID:

DOs

• Provide Tax ID to solicit monetary donations from local businesses * Provide Tax ID to solicit in-kind donations from local businesses (food for events, items for auctions) * Provide Tax ID to solicit in-kind donations from a national organization’s local business (although they are national organization, their local businesses sometimes offer food donations for events, such as Chipotle, Starbucks, etc. or in-kind auction items such as wine bottles, apparel, etc.)
• When soliciting for an in-kind donation, only approach a local branch; never contact the national organization’s main headquarters. * Provide Tax ID to local event space vendors to hold local auctions, banquets, etc.
• Provide Tax ID to solicit monetary donations from local foundations or grant makers who are restricted in giving funds to local organizations.

DON’Ts

• DO NOT use Tax ID to open a chapter bank account.
• DO NOT use Tax ID to fundraise for an individual, all donations must be made to WAVES for Development International.
• DO NOT provide Tax ID to solicit monetary donations from national organizations or corporations. These corporations should be solicited by WAVES for Development International to benefit all chapters. If you have a lead for this, please pass on to dave@wavesfordevelopment.org
• Clues that a corporation is a national organization: they ask for financial statements, list of board of directions, impact statistics, Letter of Intent, etc.
• DO NOT provide Tax ID to solicit monetary donations from national foundations or grant making organizations. If you have a lead for this, please pass on to dave@wavesfordevelopment.org
• The only exception to this is if it is a foundation owned by a family or family-friend. For instance, some students’ family members have foundations and will often make their donations out of their foundation.

Monetary Donations

WAVES cannot accept cash donations, therefore, any cash donations will not be considered tax-deductible. All monetary donations should be made by 1) credit card, 2) check or 3) wire transfer. Directions for receiving these donations can be found below:

1) Credit Card Donations

• WAVES offers Empowered.org as a donation platform and every participant must be signed up on Empowered.org in order to participate in a brigade.
• All credit card donations must be made on Empowered.org on the personal donation page of the participant.
• Donations are collected on Empowered.org via “Google Checkout” and are transferred to the appropriate WAVES Corps entity.
• When donors complete their donation online, they will automatically receive a tax receipt recognizing their tax deductible donation. The receipt will be e-mailed to the address they submit when they make their donation.
• In order to ensure 100% of all donations go towards their purpose, donors will have an option to include the 3.5% merchant fee, which covers online credit card and transaction fees, in their donations.
• If donations are made to the wrong person or the wrong amount is donated, please contact info@wavesfordevelopment.org
• If the wrong credit card is used, or if there is a mistake in the name, the donor must cancel the entire donation and start a new donation.

Donors can follow these instructions:

1. Ask for, or locate the recipient’s donation page directly by searching via his/her school or name on Empowered.org.
2. Once on the volunteer’s page, click on the orange “Donate” button under the corresponding initiative/volunteer activity that you are donating towards.
3. On the following page, please select the option “Make a donation on behalf of a volunteer:” and choose the recipient’s name.
4. Fill out the rest of the information and follow the on-screen instructions on the Empowered.org website and Google Checkout to complete the transaction.
5. If there are any issues with payment processing, please first ensure that your bank or credit card company is authorizing the transaction, then seek assistance from the Empowered.org support team at support@empowered.org.

2) Check Donations
Volunteers are strongly recommended to ask that their donors donate to their trip using their Empowered.org fundraising page. When donors complete their donation online, they will automatically receive a tax receipt recognizing their tax deductible donation. The receipt will be e-mailed to the address they submit when they make their donation.

Check donation instructions:

1. All checks must be made payable to WAVES for Development, any other variation of the name will not be accepted and will not be eligible for tax-deduction. Checks made to an individual or a chapter are considered a personal gift and they are not eligible for tax deduction (Pub. 526).
2. The donor should include the name of the volunteer and chapter (name of volunteer + school + program) to which they are donating on the memo line so that the appropriate amount can be transferred to their fundraising account on empowered.org (be as detailed as possible).
3. The donor can mail the check directly or give it to the volunteer to mail to WAVES for Development.
4. To ensure that the check is received and tracked, the volunteer should provide the following information to the chapter president: donor name, donor address, donor email address, check number, check amount, volunteer’s name and how and if the money should be split between volunteers and where it should be deposited.
5. Checks should be mailed to:
   WAVES for Development International, 2915 SW 118th Ave, Beaverton, OR 97005
6. Once the check is received, it will be transferred into the volunteer’s or chapter’s Empowered.org account
7. Donors who donate $250 or more will be mailed a tax receipts (if they provide the proper name and address along with the check). All others may use their cancelled check as proof of the donation.

If multiple checks are received for one chapter, we strongly encourage that the president or another member of the leadership team of the chapter collects all of the checks and follows these steps:

1. Once the check donations are collected from the donors, chapter presidents should collect all checks and consolidate donor information using a <check donations tracker template>
2. The spreadsheet should include three columns with the following information from each individual check: Donor Name, Email Address, Name of Volunteer Receiving Donation, and Amount of Donation.
3. The spreadsheet should be printed out and mailed along with the checks to the address listed below.

WAVES for Development International

2915 SW 118th Ave

Beaverton, OR  97005

Note: If a volunteer receives cash or a check made out to their name or chapter, the volunteer should ask the donor if they want a tax receipt or not. If YES, the donor should cancel the check and either donate with a credit card directly to WAVES via Empowered.org, or reissue a check to WAVES for Development. If NO, the volunteer may deposit the check/cash in their own account, and make a donation to WAVES by credit card on Empowered.org or send in a check to WAVES that is made out to WAVES for Development.

Material Donations

WAVES does accept donations of materials as long as the guidelines below are followed.  Please contact your Corps Advisor to find out which donations are accepted.

• The donor must be informed that the recipient of the donation is WAVES for Development on behalf of your specific chapter (i.e. WAVES Corps at Pennsylvania State University).
• All donated items, must be needed on the brigade, medications must not expire within a year and all other items must have at least one year of additional shelf life.
• WAVES cannot accept expired or unapproved donations.
• Solicited and unsolicited donations must be confirmed with the appropriate lead and be inspected for the required quality and useful life compliance before acceptance.
• Once WAVES accepts the donation, the donation will not be returned to the donor without the donor’s consent.

In order to receive recognition for the donation and a tax receipt, the president of the brigade must submit the following information to info@wavesfordevelopment.org:

• Name and address of the donor, specific office or title (if applicable)
• List/description of the donation, fair market value and date of the donation
• Declaration that the donated items were needed/used for the mission and that all donated items were in the required condition

Accounting will then issue the recognition/tax receipt. WAVES Corps presidents should send thank you notes separately.