FAQs

How much you donate is, of course, entirely your own decision. You may find some inspiration in our articles “How much should I donate?” and “Why and how I donate”.

Yes, you can deduct your donation from your taxes in Germany, Austria, Czechia and Switzerland.

What matters is that you donate to our local entity: our non-profit GmbH in Berlin, our non-profit association in Basel or our non-profit association in Vienna. You can tell by the flag at the top right of the donation form and, if you pay by bank transfer, by the bank details (except for Czechia).

In Austria, we currently focus entirely on our giving funds (except Democracy and AI), so donations to individual organizations aren’t possible there at the moment. Questions or feedback? Write to us at oesterreich@effektiv-spenden.org.

Of course. Companies can donate through us too, and we issue donation receipts to private individuals and companies alike. Just click “Donate as a company” when you enter your details in the donation form.

We automatically email you one donation receipt for all your donations at the end of February of the following year. You don’t need to do anything. Once it has been issued, you will also find it as a PDF in your donor account.

If you need your donation receipt before the end of February, please contact us at info@effektiv-spenden.org. In urgent cases, we’re happy to issue it earlier. If you need it very quickly, we recommend not paying by direct debit: otherwise we have to wait until the 8-week period for reversing a direct debit has passed before we can issue the receipt.

If you donate as a private individual in Austria, we report your donations directly to the tax office by the end of February of the following year. The reported amounts are then automatically deducted from your taxable income in your tax assessment (up to 10% of your income). This requires that you ticked “Make donation tax-deductible in Austria” when you donated, and gave us your date of birth. If you want to change your choice or aren’t sure what you selected, please contact us at oesterreich@effektiv-spenden.org or +43 1 266 01 38. You can find more about the automatic tax deduction of donations on the website of the Austrian Ministry of Finance (in German). Please check in your donor account that your name, address and date of birth are correct, so that we can report your donation to the tax office correctly.

If you donate as a company in Austria, you automatically receive a donation receipt by email at the end of February of the following year, covering all of your company’s donations that year. You can generally deduct these donations as business expenses from corporate income tax (up to 10% of your profit). Unlike donations from private individuals, we don’t report company donations to the tax office: your company declares them as expenses itself.

No problem: in your donor account you can download your donation receipts from previous years at any time (Germany, Czechia and Switzerland). If one is missing, you can request it from us directly there.

In Austria, we report donations from private individuals directly to the tax office, so you don’t need a receipt. If you donate as a company in Austria, write to us at oesterreich@effektiv-spenden.org.

Simply change your address in your donor account. In Germany, Switzerland and Czechia, we will then issue your next donation receipt to the new address. In Austria, we report your donations to the tax office with your current details. Prefer email? Write to us at info@effektiv-spenden.org.

We process donations free of charge, so we keep nothing of your donation for ourselves. However, the payment providers we work with charge fees for credit card, PayPal and SEPA direct debit payments, and these are deducted from your donation. For donations within Germany, they are:

• Bank transfer: free within the SEPA area
• SEPA direct debit: €0.35
• PayPal: 1.5% + €0.35
• Credit card/Apple Pay/Google Pay: 1.2% + €0.25 for European cards except Amex (2.9% + €0.25 for Amex and international cards)

For amounts under €10,000, we recommend SEPA direct debit, which is particularly easy for us to process, and for amounts over €10,000 a free bank transfer. For security reasons, we only offer direct debit for amounts under €10,000, and PayPal and credit cards aren’t advisable for large amounts because of the cost.

You would pay similar fees if you donated to the organizations directly. We have negotiated with all payment providers and get particularly favorable terms for non-profits.

We fund our own work through donations too, completely separately. You can read more about this on our transparency page.

We process donations free of charge, so we keep nothing of your donation for ourselves. However, the payment provider we work with charges fees for card and TWINT payments, and these are deducted from your donation. For donations within Switzerland, they are:

• Bank transfer: free within the SEPA area
• Credit card/Apple Pay/Google Pay: 2.7% + CHF 0.30 for Swiss cards (3.25% + CHF 0.30 for international cards)
• TWINT: 1.9% + CHF 0.30

Especially for larger amounts, we recommend a bank transfer.

You would pay similar fees if you donated to the organizations directly. We have negotiated with all payment providers and get particularly favorable terms for non-profits.

We fund our own work through donations too, completely separately. You can read more about this on our transparency page.

We use donations to our giving funds in full to carry out outstandingly effective projects together with partner organizations, and keep nothing of your donation for ourselves. However, the payment providers we work with charge fees for credit card and SEPA direct debit payments, and these are deducted from your donation. For donations within Austria, they are:

• Bank transfer: free within the SEPA area
• SEPA direct debit: €0.35
• Credit card: 1.2% + €0.25 for European cards (3.25% + €0.25 for international cards)

For amounts under €10,000, we recommend SEPA direct debit, which is particularly easy for us to process, and for amounts over €10,000 a free bank transfer. For security reasons, we only offer direct debit for amounts under €10,000, and credit cards aren’t advisable for large amounts because of the cost.

Similar fees apply at every organization that collects donations. We have negotiated with all payment providers and get particularly favorable terms for non-profits.

We fund our own work through donations too, completely separately. You can read more about this on our transparency page.

In your donor account you can see your recurring donations and your donation history, update your contact details and download your donation receipts from previous years. You don’t need a password: you enter your email address and receive a login link. Two-factor authentication (2FA) is optional for extra security.

You don’t need an account to donate. Your donor account exists from your first donation: simply log in with the email address you used when donating. Earlier donations made with that address appear automatically.

Germany, Austria and Switzerland each have their own donor account, which only shows the donations from that country. For donations from Czechia, log in to the German donor account.

Of course, you can still reach us by email and phone.

Log in to your donor account. There you can change the amount or how it is split, pause your recurring donation or cancel it at any time, without giving a reason.

Do you donate by standing order? Then the payment runs through your bank, so you can only change the amount, pause or cancel there, by adjusting, suspending or deleting the standing order. Please still let us know in your donor account if you change the amount or cancel. Otherwise you will receive an automated payment reminder, which you can simply ignore.

Prefer email or phone? We’re still here for you: info@effektiv-spenden.org (🇩🇪 +49 30 260 355 19, 🇨🇭 +41 44 244 27 38, 🇦🇹 +43 1 266 01 38).

You can’t change the payment method directly. Cancel your recurring donation in your donor account and set up a new one via the donation form, using the same email address. You will then see both in your account and receive a single donation receipt.

If you need help, feel free to contact us by email at info@effektiv-spenden.org or by phone (🇩🇪 +49 30 260 355 19, 🇨🇭 +41 44 244 27 38, 🇦🇹 +43 1 266 01 38).

Of course, you’re welcome to donate by bank transfer. In our donation form, choose “Bank transfer” as the payment method, enter the details we need for your donation receipt, and register your donation. You’ll then receive an email with our bank details and a personal payment reference, which lets us match your transfer to your donation automatically once it arrives.

Have a look at our recommendations for each cause area: Fighting Poverty, Mitigating Climate Change, Improving Animal Welfare, Safeguarding the Future, Controlling AI and Defending Democracy. They will help you find out which area matters most to you.

If you’re not sure which organization to choose within an area, we recommend donating to our giving funds. Your donation is then used where it does the most good within that area.

Any other questions? Email us at info@effektiv-spenden.org or give us a call. For larger donations, we’re also happy to offer you free donor advisory, where you can read more and book an appointment directly.

If you choose one of our giving funds, 100% of your donation always supports the currently most promising organizations and projects in that cause area. Together with our independent research partners, we regularly decide how best to allocate the money, and we keep you informed by email and on our website.

Advantages of the giving funds

• Even (a little) more effective: We expect the funds to have an even greater impact, because we allocate them using the latest information (for example on organizations’ funding situation) and can also support promising young initiatives in a targeted way, even before we list them as a top recommendation on our website.
• Even simpler and always up to date: You don’t have to choose yourself, and your recurring donation adapts automatically when things change (new research, a changing world).

Disadvantages of the giving funds

• They feel abstract: When you donate, you don’t yet know which specific programs your donation will make possible. That’s why we make a point of reporting back to you in detail on how your donation was used, and of making the good it achieved as tangible as possible.

You can find more about our funds, including what we have funded so far, on each fund’s page: Fighting Poverty, Mitigating Climate Change, Improving Animal Welfare, Safeguarding the Future and Defending Democracy. You can read more about the general advantages of our giving funds in this article.

Yes, the Effektiv Spenden team offers free donor advisory. On that page you can read more about it and book an appointment directly.

Donation voucher codes are valid for 12 months from the date of issue. If a voucher isn’t redeemed within that time, the amount automatically goes to our Giving Fund: Fighting Poverty. Either way, every donation fully supports the organizations we recommend.

We set this deadline so that donations reach those who need them quickly: the law requires non-profits to use their funds promptly.

The person who buys the voucher. Although the recipient decides which organization the donation goes to, for tax purposes the donation comes from the buyer. As with any other donation through us, we send the receipt automatically by the end of February of the following year.

No, we don’t charge any fees for buying a voucher, just as we don’t for donations. The voucher and the donation receipt both show the full amount you paid. Fees for external payment services such as PayPal may apply before the money reaches us (more on this in our FAQ).

Effektiv Spenden is made possible by private funders, whose support covers all of our administrative costs. This allows us to pass on your donation to our top organizations in full. Of course, we also welcome donations to us as a platform. You can find out more about how we are funded on our transparency page.

For every euro we spent on running and developing Effektiv Spenden between 2021 and 2023, we raised more than 30 euros in donations for the organizations we recommend. That’s why the evaluators Founders Pledge and Giving What We Can recommended us in 2022 as a promising “giving multiplier” and a “top-rated charity”. To win over many, many more people for effective giving in the coming years, we’d be very glad of your support too.

Yes, from Germany and Switzerland you can do this through our extended donation form.

We only need your address for your donation receipt. We send the receipt by email (at the end of February of the following year), but it has to show your postal address to be valid for tax purposes.

If you tick “Allow data transfer to organization?”, we pass your name, the amount of your donation and your email address on to the organization or organizations you selected. Our contracts with these organizations allow them to use this data, in line with the GDPR, to contact you by email once. You are not automatically signed up to their newsletter or anything similar.

As we usually forward donations only twice a year and organizations don’t always get in touch right away, it may take several months before you hear from them. In exceptional cases, you may not receive an email from the organization at all. That doesn’t mean your donation wasn’t forwarded: we guarantee that it was.

For donations to our giving funds, we never pass your details on to the organizations supported.

In the texts on our website and in our day-to-day work, we alternate between the generic feminine and the generic masculine. Where only the masculine or only the feminine form is used for a term referring to a group of people, it is not meant to be gender-specific. Unless the context explicitly says otherwise, all genders are always meant.

Please get in touch. You can email us at info@effektiv-spenden.org or call us (🇩🇪 +49 30 260 355 19, 🇨🇭 +41 44 244 27 38, 🇦🇹 +43 1 266 01 38).