This article was originally published on the CAF America Connections blog on 2 June 2014. The original article can be found here.
Charities Aid Foundation of America (CAF America) and TRUiST, Inc. have announced a partnership that will expand CAF America’s offerings to include an employee giving component and will enhance TRUiST’s ability to disburse donations to an international network of charities.
This partnership comes on the heels of TRUiST’s acquisition by FrontStream Holdings, LLC (dba FrontStream Payments). In addition to the 20,000 nonprofit clients that made up FrontStream’s portfolio, the TRUiST acquisition added an employee engagement and workplace giving component consisting of corporate clients who are disbursing an average of $230 million to nonprofit organizations on an annual basis. The partnership with CAF America now gives those corporations the ability to run workplace giving campaigns that will benefit an additional 181,000+ charitable organizations that reside outside of the United States and Canada.
CAF America is a member of the Global Alliance of the Charities Aid Foundation which spans six continents and manages over $4 billion in charitable funds. By leveraging the depth and breadth of the expertise that exists across all chapters of the Alliance, CAF America creates dynamic opportunities for donors of all types to make a global impact through their charitable giving efforts.
“The partnership represents a major milestone for the philanthropic community throughout the country. Current trends indicate that the time is right to facilitate effective workplace giving campaigns that have an international scope,” said Ted Hart, CEO of CAF America. “With the introduction of this joint service, companies are empowered to harness the impressive capacity of FrontStream and the global expertise of CAF America, an opportunity that profoundly enhances their philanthropic strategies and changes lives around the world.”
FrontStream maintains a database of over 1.5 million charities in the U.S. as well as 85,000 charities in Canada. In addition to receiving a quarterly update of tax-exempt organizations from the Internal Revenue Service and Canada Revenue Agency, FrontStream uses a highly sophisticated set of internal controls to carefully vet any charities that may be eligible to receive disbursements from donors that are fundraising on behalf of organizations that do not exist in the database.
TRUiST currently vets 75,000 additional domestic charity records each year. With the addition of CAF America’s international charity vetting services, this number will grow exponentially to include foreign charities hoping to attract interest from donors who contribute $300 billion in charitable funds each year in the U.S. alone. FrontStream and CAF America are committed to ensuring that all supported organizations comply with U.S. rules and regulations and adhere to international grantmaking ‘best practices’ (including compliance with IRS regulations; anti-terrorist, FCPA and Patriot Act requirements).
“With the strength of our tools and the passion of our people, FrontStream has the potential to be a vehicle by which the world of giving is significantly expanded over the next decade,” states Nina Vellayan, CEO and President of FrontStream. “We recognize that, in order to execute a vision of that magnitude, it will require strong partnerships with organizations like CAF America that will allow us to quickly make an impact that is not limited by geography; we want to enable and increase philanthropic giving locally, nationally and internationally.”
More about CAF America and TRUiST here.