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.

Important: 

  • 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.

  • This feature is translated and supports the transaction's currency.

  • Stranded Funds Automation is not segmentable.

  • You can exclude specific donors from receiving certain Stranded Funds Automation email notifications. See Email exemptions.

  • For a full list of all email notifications for this feature, see the Stranded Funds Automation section of the CSRconnect Email Library.

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 (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  • Charity is no longer active on YourCause platform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.

Donors will see the following redirect options if they have been enabled for their community:

  • Preferred alternate organization: Client admins may select one alternate organization. This nonprofit is featured as a one-click option.

  • Other suggested organizations: Client admins can select up to four additional organizations to appear as suggested charities.

  • Reissue to original organization: The donor can choose to redirect stale funds to the original organization. This option cannot be turned off, but it may be unavailable if the charity is ineligible for giving.

  • Search for another organization: If enabled, the donor can search for an eligible charity from this feature's charity bucket.

  • Donate to donation processor: If all other redirect options are turned off, currently ineligible to receive funds, or not configured, donors will have the option to donate their stranded funds to the processor.

  • The donor does not select a redirect organization before the 30-day deadline:

    • The stranded funds will be automatically redirected to their community's alternate organization.

  • The donor does not select a redirect organization and their community does not have a preferred alternate organization selected:

    • The donation processor will serve as the default alternate organization if no alternate is selected.

  • The Reissue to original organization option is selected and the funds go stale again:

    • The system will automatically redirect the transaction to the alternate organization without any donor choice.

  • The user has selected a redirect organization for a recurring pledge donation in SFA and another donation from that pledge enters SFA:

    • The new donation will be automatically redirected to the organization selected for the previous stranded pledge donation, and the ongoing pledge is canceled.

  • The user has not selected a redirect organization for a recurring pledge donation in SFA and another donation from that pledge enters SFA:

    • The new donation will be automatically redirected to the employer's alternate organization, and the ongoing pledge is canceled.

Users other than the support account must have permission to activate, save, and edit settings.

  1. Go to Users, select Manage Roles, and then select the appropriate role.

  2. In System, select Can Manage Stale Check Processing Setting.

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

  • 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 theCSRconnect 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.

You can review the status of Stranded Fund Automation transactions from Standard Reports, Give using the Transactions on Hold Report. Some SFA fields are also included in the All Giving Report.