Apple opens up Apple Pay donations to non-profit organizations

Apple on Monday enabled the use of Apple Pay for donations to non-profit organizations, addressing a fundamental gap in the mobile payment platform.

The initial group of supporters includes 19 organizations, such as the American Heart Association, Doctors Without Borders, Feeding America, the International Rescue Committee, UNICEF, and the World Wildlife Fund. Five more will be joining "soon," Apple said, namely the American Cancer Society, CARE, DonorsChoose.org, PBS, and the United Way.

Efforts appear to be concentrated on Web-based donations, even though some of the organizations have apps. Web transactions were introduced to Apple Pay in September, alongside iOS 10 and macOS Sierra.

It's unknown why Apple wasn't previously supporting non-profit donations, but the company typically claims a small fee from each Apple Pay transaction, which it would presumably want to waive for charities. The company is also likely vetting each entity, considering the risk posed by scam artists.

The full list of launch-day organizations includes:

6 Comments

SpamSandwich 32917 comments · 19 Years

About 8 years ago

This is a great way to iron out the inevitable wrinkles that come with attempting to making donations. Presumably, donations simply show up on credit card statements to later be used as evidence come tax time.

mike1 3432 comments · 10 Years

SpamSandwich said:

This is a great way to iron out the inevitable wrinkles that come with attempting to making donations. Presumably, donations simply show up on credit card statements to later be used as evidence come tax time.

Regardless of whether one uses ApplePay or a credit card, the site should still bring you to a printable confirmation page. Apps can do the same. Either print immediately save to iBooks as a PDF for printing later.

mike1 said:

SpamSandwich said:

This is a great way to iron out the inevitable wrinkles that come with attempting to making donations. Presumably, donations simply show up on credit card statements to later be used as evidence come tax time.

Regardless of whether one uses ApplePay or a credit card, the site should still bring you to a printable confirmation page. Apps can do the same. Either print immediately save to iBooks as a PDF for printing later.

Agreed.

berndog 90 comments · 11 Years

I noticed the the biggest charity scam of all time is going to be on the second wave of additions - United Way is just a scamming middleman - come on Apple you are better than that

stantheman 332 comments · 11 Years

berndog said:

I noticed the the biggest charity scam of all time is going to be on the second wave of additions - United Way is just a scamming middleman - come on Apple you are better than that

By collecting donations for a wide range of charities all in one location, Apple is somewhat of a replacement for United Way. By leaving the distribution of funds completely up to donors, however, Apple does not pass final judgement on the worthiness of various causes the way that United Way does.

Apple should provide receipts (in online iTunes accounts) for donors so they can claim a tax deduction for qualifying charities. I can understand why it wouldn't get into issuing receipts when donations were solicited for one-time events, but that isn't good enough if Apple is going to promote giving to established groups around the calendar. This is not rocket science. You can go online and get a record of past movie purchases.