Picture a donor who wants to support a small education nonprofit, To Be Heard Foundation in Katonah, New York. They find it on RoundUp.org, click the big button that says Start Rounding Up, set a monthly limit of $20, and link a credit card. Later, their dashboard tells them: “your entire RoundUp donation amount will be given to the nonprofit you’ve selected.”
RoundUp’s Terms of Service describe something different: the charity gets a grant “net of fees.” On a $20 month, those fees come to as much as $4.26.
This is the second piece in our look at RoundUp.org. The first covered how the site built donate pages for 1.8 million nonprofits and gets them found in search. This one follows a donor’s money from the card to the charity, and counts what comes out along the way.
First, what RoundUp.org is
RoundUp.org, Inc. is a company in Durham, North Carolina. A donor links a Visa or Mastercard, every purchase gets rounded up to the next dollar, and the spare change is totaled and charged to the card once a month. There is a $10 monthly minimum, and donors can set a cap.
The money doesn’t go to the charity the donor picked. It goes to Our Change Foundation (OCF), a donor-advised fund connected to the giving platform Change. A donor-advised fund is a charitable account held by a sponsoring charity. Once money goes in, the sponsor owns it and decides where it is granted; the donor’s pick is a recommendation. RoundUp’s Terms put it plainly: all donations “are subject to OCF’s exclusive control and discretion.”
What the donor sees
We walked through the donor sign-up for To Be Heard Foundation’s listing. The listing page is one of the 1.8 million RoundUp built from IRS data; a dark banner says donations go “via nonprofit donor advised fund Our Change Foundation.”
The first sign-up step asks for a maximum monthly donation. We picked $20. The screen notes the $10 minimum. It doesn’t mention fees.
Then the dashboard, in a help bubble next to the donor’s chosen charity:
“Change your nonprofit as often as you like. Each month, your entire RoundUp donation amount will be given to the nonprofit you’ve selected as of the last day of the month.”
RoundUp.org donor dashboard
To be fair to the wording, “entire” may mean “not split between charities”: the whole month goes to one pick, not a share to each. But a donor reading it would reasonably think every dollar reaches the charity. It doesn’t.
What the Terms take
The fees are in the “Fees” section of RoundUp’s Terms of Service, which say the monthly contribution goes to the chosen charity “net of fees.” There are three:
- $2 a month to RoundUp.org, which it retains from each monthly donation as a “fundraising expense.” Its Terms apply the $2 to each registered credit card.
- Up to 4.8% of the month’s total for third-party costs: card processing, the transaction data used to calculate round-ups, and paying the money out to nonprofits by ACH or check.
- Up to $1.30 a month, the fixed part of those same third-party costs.
The Terms say who gets the $2: RoundUp. RoundUp’s FAQ says the rest goes to third parties for card processing, transaction data and paying out the grants, and that together those costs “total a maximum of $1.30 + 4.8% of each donation, but that amount could be lower depending on the volume of donations processed.” Neither the FAQ nor the Terms names the third parties.
Here’s what that does to a $20 month. Drag the slider to try other amounts:
RoundUp.org fees · one card · from its FAQ and Terms of Service
Where a monthly round-up goes
Three fees come out before Our Change Foundation grants the rest to the charity the donor picked. Processing is shown at RoundUp’s stated maximum. Drag to change the monthly round-up.
$15.74
Granted on to the charity
$4.26
In fees (21.3%)
$51.12
In fees over a year
This month's round-up, split
Share of each month's round-up lost to fees
Source: RoundUp.org FAQ, “How does RoundUp.org cover its costs?”: RoundUp.org retains $2 from each monthly donation, and third-party processing costs “total a maximum of $1.30 + 4.8% of each donation, but that amount could be lower depending on the volume of donations processed.” The Terms of Service apply the $2 per registered card and work an example of $100 → $91.90. $10 minimum from RoundUp’s FAQ. OCF grants at its discretion under its grantmaking policies. Updated September 29, 2026; when first captured on September 22, the Terms gave the rate as 4.98%.
| Monthly round-up | Fees | Share lost | Left to grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10 (the minimum) | $3.78 | 37.8% | $6.22 |
| $20 | $4.26 | 21.3% | $15.74 |
| $32 (the average RoundUp stated in September) | $4.84 | 15.1% | $27.16 |
| $100 (the Terms’ example) | $8.10 | 8.1% | $91.90 |
RoundUp’s page for nonprofits says “about 85% of the average donation goes to the nonprofit.” In September the same page put the average donation at $32, and at $32 that’s right. At $20 it’s 78.7%, and at the $10 minimum it’s 62%. Two of the three fees are flat dollar amounts ($3.30 a month between them), so the smaller the gift, the bigger the bite. Translation: RoundUp’s most casual donors lose the biggest share.
Where the money goes after that
After fees, what happens depends on the charity the donor picked, and in particular on whether it has an account with Change. Pick one:
Follow the money · from RoundUp.org’s Terms of Service
Where a round-up actually goes
Three steps are the same for every donor. The fourth depends on the charity they picked.
The donor picks a charity and links a card
Every purchase rounds up to the next dollar. The card is charged once a month: at least $10, up to any cap the donor sets.
The money goes to Our Change Foundation, not the charity
OCF, a donor-advised fund, is the legal recipient. The donor’s tax receipt carries OCF’s EIN. The charity the donor picked is a recommendation.
Fees come out first
$2 a month to RoundUp.org for each card, plus up to 4.8% and $1.30 in third-party processing costs. On a $20 month that is as much as $4.26, leaving $15.74.
4. What happens next? Pick the charity’s situation:
OCF grants the net amount
The Terms say OCF grants to a qualified charity “within thirty (30) days after the end of the month in which the donation was made.” Change handles the payout account.
OCF keeps “ultimate discretion, control, and authority,” but says it will follow the donor’s pick unless the charity isn’t qualified.
A letter goes out, and the money waits
If the charity qualifies but has no Change account, the Terms say OCF “will send a letter to the organization requesting that the Organization establish an account with Change so that OCF can disburse the funds.”
Change’s own FAQ answers the charity that gets that letter: You will need to claim your nonprofit profile on Change in order to receive the funds.
Neither document says how long the money waits, or what happens if the charity never signs up. This is the path for any listed charity that has never set up a Change account.
The money goes somewhere else
The donor is asked to recommend a different charity. If they don’t in time, OCF picks one itself and sends the funds within 30 days of that deadline.
A donor who wants to know where their money went can email support@roundup.org. The Terms promise an answer “no later than 15 business days after the donated funds were sent.”
Sources: RoundUp.org Terms of Service and For Nonprofits page; Change nonprofit FAQ (getchange.io/faq/nonprofit). Captured September 23, 2026. Describes the stated procedure, not the handling of any specific donation.
The letter
That middle path is the one that matters most, because RoundUp lists every eligible charity whether it signed up or not. If a donor picks a qualified charity that has no Change account, RoundUp’s Terms say OCF “will send a letter to the organization requesting that the Organization establish an account with Change so that OCF can disburse the funds to the organization.”
Change’s nonprofit FAQ answers the charity that gets that letter:
“I received a letter in the mail stating that I have funds waiting to be paid out to me. How do I receive these funds? You will need to claim your nonprofit profile on Change in order to receive the funds.”
Change, nonprofit FAQ
Translation: the charity has to sign up with a company it may never have heard of before it sees a dollar. Neither RoundUp’s Terms nor Change’s FAQ says how long the money waits, whether the letter is followed up, or what happens to the funds if the charity never signs up. (RoundUp’s page for nonprofits says they “register for free with Our Change Foundation to receive their funds via ACH or a mailed check.” Free, yes. Optional, no.)
Meanwhile the donor’s card is charged every month, and the dashboard keeps saying the “entire” amount goes to their charity.
Can a donor find out where it went?
Yes, if they ask. The Terms say a donor who wants to know whether their money went to their charity or “an alternate charitable organization” can email support@roundup.org, and the answer comes “no later than 15 business days after the donated funds were sent.” The same section describes how a charity can ask to be removed: in writing, with verification, the process we covered in part one.
In fairness
RoundUp publishes its fees, with a worked example, which is more than several platforms in our Shadow Donation Directory do. RoundUp.org, Inc. is registered in California as a commercial fundraiser and OCF as a charity. The listing banner names the donor-advised fund.
We also only captured the first of the three sign-up steps and the dashboard. A fee breakdown could appear on the later steps, on a receipt or in account emails. What we can say is that the screens we saw show a $10 minimum and an “entire donation” promise, and the numbers that change the picture live in the Terms.
None of that changes the math. A monthly donor at $20 gives $240 a year; up to $51.12 of it goes to fees before a grant is made, and a charity that never heard of RoundUp has to sign up with Change to collect the rest.
What to do
- If you’re a donor: give on the charity’s own website. A direct monthly gift usually costs the charity a card processing fee. If you’re already rounding up through RoundUp, email support@roundup.org to confirm where your money has been going.
- If you run a nonprofit: search your EIN on roundup.org. If you’ve received a letter from Our Change Foundation or Change about funds waiting, some of it may be RoundUp money (Change pays out for other giving platforms too). Decide whether to claim it on Change or ask RoundUp to remove your listing by emailing support@roundup.org.
- If you’re a monthly donor to any charity: ask where your gift actually lands. Most of the time the answer is fine. Sometimes it’s a fund you’ve never heard of.
How we did this
We went through the first step of RoundUp’s donor sign-up for To Be Heard Foundation and captured the dashboard help text. We read RoundUp’s Terms of Service, FAQ and page for nonprofits, and Change’s nonprofit FAQ, as published on September 23, 2026. Fee figures are calculated for one card at the maximum processing costs in RoundUp’s FAQ and Terms as of September 29, 2026; on September 23 the Terms gave the rate as 4.98%. We have not seen any payout records.
Disclosure: Whole Whale, the company behind Nonprofit News Feed, works with Power Poetry, a program of To Be Heard Foundation. We used To Be Heard Foundation’s RoundUp listing as the example in this article.
Nonprofit News Feed has asked RoundUp.org and Our Change Foundation for comment. This piece will be updated with any response.
Contact LetsTalk@wholewhale.com with any requests for documented evidence.