Donation glossary
Plain-language definitions of the terms around online donations — donation widgets, Stripe Connect, platform and processing fees, payouts, chargebacks, recurring gifts, and more. Crisp answers, no jargon.
Donation widget
A donation widget is a small block of code you embed on your own website that lets visitors give money without leaving your page.
Stripe Connect
Stripe Connect is Stripe's system for routing payments to many separate accounts, so each business or creator gets paid into their own Stripe account.
Platform fee
A platform fee is the cut a donation or fundraising service takes from the money you raise, separate from the payment processor's charge.
Processing fee
A processing fee is the charge a payment processor like Stripe takes to handle a card transaction — commonly around 2.9% plus 30¢ per payment.
Recurring donation
A recurring donation is a gift that repeats automatically on a schedule — usually monthly — until the donor cancels.
Payout
A payout is the transfer of your collected donations from your payment processor to your own bank account.
Chargeback
A chargeback is when a card holder disputes a charge with their bank and the payment is reversed, usually with a fee charged to the recipient.
Embed snippet
An embed snippet is a short piece of HTML or JavaScript you paste into your site to load an external component, like a donation widget.
Hosted donation page
A hosted donation page is a ready-made donation page that lives on a provider's domain and is shared as a link, rather than embedded on your own site.
Conversion rate
A donation conversion rate is the share of people who see your donation ask and actually complete a gift.
501(c)(3)
A 501(c)(3) is a US tax-exempt charitable organization recognized by the IRS, eligible to receive donations that may be tax-deductible for the donor.
EIN
An EIN (Employer Identification Number) is a nine-digit number the IRS assigns to a US business or nonprofit to identify it for tax purposes.
In-kind donation
An in-kind donation is a non-cash gift to a nonprofit or cause — goods, services, or expertise donated instead of money.
Matching gift
A matching gift is a donation made by an employer or sponsor that matches an employee's or supporter's gift to the same cause.
Peer-to-peer fundraising
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a model where individual supporters each raise money for a cause from their own networks, contributing toward a shared total.
Donor-advised fund
A donor-advised fund (DAF) is a charitable giving account where a donor contributes money for an immediate tax deduction, then recommends grants to nonprofits over time.
Soft credit
A soft credit is internal recognition that a gift was influenced by or routed through someone other than the legal donor — used in donor records, not on tax receipts.
Donor pyramid
The donor pyramid is a fundraising model that pictures supporters arranged by gift size — many small donors at the base, fewer mid-level donors in the middle, a small number of major donors at the top.
Donor retention rate
Donor retention rate is the percentage of donors from a prior period who give again in the next period — a measure of how well you're keeping the supporters you've already earned.
Restricted vs unrestricted donation
Restricted donations are earmarked by the donor for a specific purpose; unrestricted donations can be used wherever the nonprofit needs them most.
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