Round-Ups FAQs

Most commonly asked questions about Round-Ups.

Megan Carlson Kladakis avatar
Written by Megan Carlson Kladakis
Updated over a week ago
  1. How much can I expect a donor to donate each month?
    The average active card user accumulates about $25/mo in spare change. Donors can set a minimum giving cap of $10 & a maximum giving cap of $100. If a donor accumulates spare change that is less than the giving cap, they'll donate that amount (ex: cap is $10, donor accumulates $5.94, donor will give $5.94). *This applies to all donors who registered for Round-Ups prior to April 9th, 2021.
    For all donors who registered for Round-Ups after April 9th, 2021, the minimum Round-Up donation will always be $9.99.

  2. Why did we receive a round-up donation less than the cap the donor set & exceeded?
    When a donor reaches their cap, the amount they donate is the accumulated round-up amount before they hit their limit. For example, if a donor set a cap at $15, and their last transaction brought their round-ups to $14.50, but the purchase that took them over their $15 cap was greater than the $0.50 cents left between their last round-up and the cap, the total round-up donation would be $14.50.

  3. Why did we not receive a round-up donation of less than $1?
    To ensure Stripe's processing fees do not eat up your entire donation, any total round-ups that accumulated to less than $1 at the end of that month do not get processed.

  4. I successfully registered for Round-Ups, why are my donations not accumulating/charging? Why is there an error message?
    Harness partners with Plaid to connect to a donor's bank so our technology can calculate each month's unique round-up accumulation.

    Plaid has relationships with 15,000+ banks across the U.S.
    - If your bank is listed, this means Plaid currently has (or has previously had) a relationship with your bank.
    - If your bank is listed, but round-ups are not accumulating or withdrawing, this means that Plaid & your bank have become disconnected. You may notice an "account error" message within your Round-Up report - here's what that means & how your donors can reconnect.
    - If your bank is not listed, here's why. (You can request your bank be added to Plaid's list of providers via Plaid's Support button in the bottom right corner here.)

    Unfortunately, Plaid rarely alerts Harness to when these infrequent disconnects occur (when they do, we report these to you here with an "account error" message). Because these disconnects occur outside of Harness's system (within Plaid), we have no way to identify specifically what is causing your personal disconnect (ex: bank makes a security update, Plaid updates their policy, etc.) or when Plaid + your bank will resolve the issue (as the disconnects are occurring OUTSIDE of Harness).

    As you can imagine, this is incredibly frustrating for us, so our team built a NEW feature (short-term solution) called Round-Ups Minimum! We're also working on some even more awesome long-term solutions (direct relationships with card providers) to offer solutions that ensure the Round-Up registration and donation process are easy for your donors and valuable for you.

    In the interim, we recommend the donor try to register a different card (associated with a different bank) and/or make a "classic" monthly gift for a comparable amount (ex: $15-$35).

  5. How do donors set & change their giving cap?
    During Round-Up registration, donors can adjust the default/suggested giving cap of $35 higher or lower - the lowest cap they can set is $10, the highest cap is $100. The average Round-Up donation for active card users is $30-$35. After the donor has registered, they can increase/decrease their cap at any time in their personal Donor Dashboard via this guide. They can also adjust their settings to give either $1 or $0 if the transaction ends in $.00.

  6. Why doesn't a round-up get donated after each transaction?
    Credit card processing fees can range from 2.2% + $.30 > 6.5% each transaction. Round-Up accumulations range from $0.01 > $0.99. The processing fee on individual round-ups would consume the majority of the round-up or even put you in a negative balance. Additionally, tiny dollar amounts (less than a dollar) are usually an indication of fraudulent activity & would trigger consistent bank security concerns & alerts.

  7. Why is my donor's bank not listed?
    We partner with 15,000+ banks across the U.S. and continually try to add NEW banks. If the donor's bank is not listed, they are not an approved partner and your donor cannot give via Round-Ups. In this case, we encourage your donors to give a comparable (ex: $15-$35/mo) "classic" monthly gift instead.

  8. How can I see which banks are approved?
    You can create a personal donor account & begin the process of creating your own Round-Up registration. During the second/last step (connect your bank), you can search for the bank you're looking for.

  9. My donor registered the same card multiple times. How do I prevent this?
    Currently, we're unable to prevent a donor from registering the same card for Round-Ups multiple times. This is because for security their full card information is not stored in Harness, only within Stripe (our payment processor), so the Harness platform is unable to access/check against the cards they already have registered to avoid duplicate registration.

  10. How do I pull a report of previous month's Round-Up donations?
    Your Round-Up report only shows active Round-Up donors for the current month, so the best way to see previous month's Round-Up donations is to download your Donation Report here (CSV/Excel) and in one click sort by column F (Donation Type).

  11. The Round-Up registration screen gives me an error message & isn't letting me connect to my bank - what do I do?
    Some banks require two-factor authentication and/or special permissions before allowing you to register for Round-Ups. While Harness cannot control which banks require this and/or know the exact steps your bank requires you to take to connect, we encourage you to reach out to your institution directly for support/next steps.

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