DonorDrive Announces Support for Donor Advised Fund Payments with Chariot Collaboration

DonorDrive, an EngageSmart (NYSE: ESMT) solution and creator of an advanced enterprise digital fundraising solution, announced a collaboration with Chariot, the creator of Donor Advised Fund (DAF) payments solution DAFpay™️, which will allow DonorDrive clients to accept DAF payments online through their existing DonorDrive donation forms. The new feature is expected to be available in the DonorDrive platform at the end of January 2024.

Individual giving experienced a 6.4% year-over-year decline in 2022, according to Giving USA. In contrast, the National Philanthropic Trust found that Donor Advised Fund giving grew 9.1% in their 2023 DAF Report. This coupled with the fact that the average DAF gift is $4,798 (per Fidelity's annual DAF donor report) makes Donor Advised Funds a key focus for fundraising teams. The 2023 DAF report also found that in 2022, donors gave $52 billion from DAFs – yet $229 billion is still held in these charitable savings accounts waiting to be donated to qualified 501(c)(3) organizations. As nonprofit organizations face an increasing amount of pressure to raise funds, accepting DAF gifts directly in their online giving forms offers enterprise nonprofits an opportunity to reach a wider demographic of highly generous donors and make giving as convenient as possible for them.

Many DonorDrive clients already accept DAF gifts, but processing these donations is tedious and time-consuming for both internal staff and donors. With DAFpay™️ by Chariot, donors can grant directly from their DAF account to a nonprofit’s DonorDrive fundraising campaign or event. The benefiting organization will receive immediate access to details including the gift amount, donation status, and the donor’s contact information in the DonorDrive platform. With all of this information saved in one place, nonprofits will have a simpler way to engage donors and help drive donor retention. The organization will also receive all these DAF gifts electronically, saving meaningful staff time while reducing the risk of lost or stolen checks.

DAFpay™️ will be an available payment option for all DonorDrive donation experiences, including DonorDrive’s newly released Embedded Donation Forms. In addition to DAFpay™️, DonorDrive offers a variety of donor payment options: all major credit cards, multi-currency, ACH, and digital wallet options PayPal, Apple Pay, and Venmo.

“Across the philanthropy industry, nonprofits are searching for expanded and creative ways to increase funds raised as individual giving declines significantly,” said Kasey Cuppoletti, Senior Vice President, Product at DonorDrive. “At DonorDrive, we’re constantly looking for innovative ways to help our clients combat those trends and acquire more donors. Through our collaboration with Chariot, Donor Advised Funds provide a great opportunity for our clients to increase revenue, reduce friction in the donation process, and improve efficiency for their internal teams.”

“Having a Donor Advised Fund payment option superpowers fundraising efforts and creates a more streamlined experience for donors," said Aaron Kahane, Co-Founder and COO of Chariot. "By collaborating with DonorDrive, we’re making it easy for donors to contribute directly to the organization of their choice, especially as part of high impact peer-to-peer campaigns. We estimate more than 3 million donors have access to Donor Advised Funds. DAFpay™️ by Chariot simplifies the DAF donor giving experience, increasing conversion rates and donation frequency, and helping nonprofits steward their donors by enhancing the ability to thank and connect with donors immediately after a donation is made.”

About DonorDrive:

DonorDrive, an EngageSmart solution, is an advanced digital fundraising platform for nonprofits that turns everyday people into powerful fundraisers. Drive more revenue for your cause with the most immersive, connected, and well-designed fundraising experience ever made. For more than 20 years, DonorDrive has helped hundreds of nonprofits like Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Covenant House, Doctors Without Borders, Muscular Dystrophy Association, World Vision and hundreds more to raise billions of dollars. To learn more about DonorDrive, visit www.donordrive.com.

About EngageSmart:

EngageSmart is a leading provider of vertically tailored customer engagement software and integrated payments solutions. At EngageSmart, our mission is to simplify customer and client engagement to allow our customers to focus resources on initiatives that improve their businesses and better serve their communities. EngageSmart offers single instance, multi-tenant, true Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) vertical solutions, including SimplePractice, InvoiceCloud, and DonorDrive, that are designed to simplify our customers’ engagement with their clients by driving digital adoption and self-service. As of September 30, 2023, EngageSmart serves 116,200 customers in the SMB Solutions segment and 3,400 customers in the Enterprise Solutions segment across several core verticals: Health & Wellness, Government, Utilities, Financial Services, and Giving. For more information, visit www.engagesmart.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

About Chariot:

Chariot is the only Donor Advised Fund (DAF) fundraising solution for nonprofits. DAFs are the fastest growing funding source in philanthropy and hold $230 billion that’s waiting to be donated. The problem is that DAFs are impossible to use in the places donors are most inspired to give (donation forms, peer-to-peer campaigns & live events) and create a processing nightmare for nonprofits to manage. Chariot unlocks more DAF gifts faster by integrating 3-click DAF giving into any digital donation experience with DAFpay™️. Chariot also enables real-time capture of DAF donor name & email for effective stewardship and fully electronic processing for seamless payouts. You can try a demo here and learn more at www.givechariot.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this release are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements contained in this news release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, and are generally identified by words such as “expect,” “intend,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “believe,” “future,” “could,” “should,” “plan,” “aim,” and other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding anticipated financial performance and financial position, including our financial outlook for the first quarter and full year 2023 and thereafter, and other statements that are not historical facts. These forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements for many reasons, including, but not limited to, the following: our inability to sustain our rapid growth; failure to manage our infrastructure to support our future growth; our risk management efforts not being effective to prevent fraudulent activities; inability to attract new customers or convert trial customers into paying customers; inability to introduce new features or services successfully or to enhance our solutions; declines in customer renewals or failure to convince customers to broaden their use of solutions; inability to achieve or sustain profitability; failure to adapt and respond effectively to rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards and regulations and changing business needs, requirements or preferences; real or perceived errors, failures or bugs in our solutions; intense competition; lack of success in establishing, growing or maintaining strategic partnerships; fluctuations in quarterly operating results; future acquisitions and investments diverting management’s attention and difficulties associated with integrating such acquired businesses; general economic conditions (including inflation and rising interest rates), both domestically and internationally, as well as economic conditions affecting industries in which our customers operate; the war in Ukraine; concentration of revenue in our InvoiceCloud and SimplePractice solutions; COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on our employees, customers, partners, clients and other key stakeholders; legal and regulatory risks; and technology and intellectual property-related risks, among others.

Other important risk factors that could affect the outcome of the events set forth in these statements and that could affect the Company’s operating results and financial condition are discussed in Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, and our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, as updated by our future filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Such statements are based on the Company’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to the Company. The Company disclaims any obligation to publicly update or revise any such forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this document except as required by law.

Non-Affiliate Disclaimer

Apple Pay is a registered trademark of Apple Inc. PayPal and Venmo are registered trademarks of PayPal, Inc. All product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Their use does not imply affiliation or endorsement by the trademark holders. The use of any trade name or trademark herein is for identification and reference purposes only.

Disclosure

We disclose information to the public concerning EngageSmart, EngageSmart’s products and services, and other items through a variety of disclosure channels in order to achieve broad, non-exclusionary distribution of information to the public. Some of the information distributed through these disclosure channels may be considered material information. Investors and others are encouraged to review the information we make public in the locations below.* This list may be updated from time to time.

*For information concerning EngageSmart and its products and services, please visit: www.engagesmart.com

*For information provided to the investment community, including news releases, events and presentations, and SEC filings, please visit: investors.engagesmart.com/overview/default.aspx

*For information provided to the media, including news releases, please visit: investors.engagesmart.com/news/default.aspx

*For additional information, please follow EngageSmart’s social media accounts: www.twitter.com/engagesmartinc, www.facebook.com/EngageSmartInc, and www.linkedin.com/company/engagesmart

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240123518531/en/