Stranded Funds Automation

Most donations made through CSRconnect are successfully disbursed on first attempt (98%). However, some situations can occur outside of our control, such as when a charity does not cash a check or loses their donation eligibility status based on their IRS standing.

When this occurs, the transaction becomes stranded. Additional actions become necessary to either get the transaction to the originally intended charity or redirect the funds to another eligible charity.

The Stranded Funds Automation (SFA) process notifies donors that their donation has become stranded and allows them to select an option to resolve the issue. Donors have 30 days to redirect their stranded funds.

For more about the available redirect options, see Stranded Funds Automation redirects.

Note: Some stranded funds are not SFA-eligible and will require manual resolution, such as transactions made through GrantsConnect. The Manual Quarterly Remediation process addresses these stranded funds.

Important:

This feature is translated and supports the transaction's currency.
Stranded Funds Automation is not segmentable.

Hold reasons

Hold reasons are the events that cause a donation to become a stranded fund. The following hold reasons are currently handled by the SFA process:

Stale checks not deposited after 120 days (US only)
Undelivered checks returned by USPS (US only)
Charity is on the donor’s resident state revocation list (See CA AB 488.)
Charity has lost its eligibility for giving
Charity is no longer active on YourCause platform

Once the donation has become a stranded fund, donors are notified and can redirect their stranded funds.

For true hold reasons (when we are not able to process a transaction to a charity), the funds become stranded before we make a disbursement attempt.
For stale checks, the funds become stranded once the check has been voided. There are multiple attempts made to contact charities when a check is at risk of becoming stale, including email notifications sent at the 45- and 90-day period after the original issue date. We can reissue checks based upon request from those contacts. Donors are proactively notified 30 days before the 120-day deadline.

SFA settings

To configure your community's SFA settings, visit the CSRconnect Admin Portal, Processing Settings, Transaction Redirects.

Your must have the Can Manage Stale Check Processing Setting permission to manage SFA settings. See Roles & permissions.

Note: Because stranded funds must be redirected to an organization that uses the same processor as the original organization, some SFA settings are configured for each enabled processor.

Transaction Redirect Charity Bucket: Select a bucket of eligible organizations employees can choose for fund redirection.
- To enable the Search for another organization redirect option, select the Allow employees to search for a charity within this bucket setting.
Alternate and Suggested Redirect Organizations: Select an alternate redirect organization for each enabled processor. Client admins can select one alternate organization. If no alternate organization is selected, the donation processor serves as the default alternate organization.
- Optionally, client admins can select up to four additional organizations to appear as suggested charities.
- Notification Settings: Select admin(s) who will be notified if a selected alternate organization becomes ineligible for giving. In this situation, an admin must log into the CSRconnect Admin Portal to update the alternate charity.
Auto Redirect Communication: Enter custom text that will appear in emails to donors whose donations have been auto redirected due to donor inaction. This is an optional setting.
- There is a 1000-character limit with no HTML/formatting options. Spaces are included in the character count. The text will appear below the introduction paragraph of the email.
Customize Redirect Landing Page: Enter custom text that will appear for donors on the Donation Redirects page in CSRconnect. This is an optional setting.
- The Custom Message field limits entries to 1000 characters. Spaces are included in the character count.

Tip: For more about the redirect options configured in these settings, see Stranded Funds Automation redirects.