for donors
most frequent questions and answers
General
Econus allows users to donate their spare change, rounded up from everyday purchases, as well as one-time and recurring donations to non-profit organizations and individual crowdfunding campaigns of their choosing.
Your donations are sent to a Donor Advised Fund (same process used by eBay for Charity, GoFundMe, PayPal, etc.), who distributes them on your behalf.
Your campaign contributions are transferred directly from your connected account to the campaign account via our Payment Processing Partner.
This process ensures payments never enter our servers and allows us to maintain the highest security standards possible.
Security is our top priority.
Your sensitive information never touches our servers. Bank authentication, transaction monitoring, and payment processing are handled by our trusted partners, all of which are subject to stringent federal regulations, including regular NACHA compliance audits and penetration testing. Any and all sensitive information is tokenized and transmitted over encrypted tunnels.
We use the same system trusted by Venmo, Acorns, Robinhood, Betterment, Digit, LendingClub, Upstart, Stripe, Coinbase, TransferWise, Justworks, Gusto, OnDeck, and Fundera, just to name a few.
We’ve got you covered.
We do not sell your personally identifiable information (Your Information) to third parties. Our primary purpose in collecting Your Information is to provide you with a safe, smooth, efficient, and customized experience.
Additionally, we only use non-personally identifiable information that we aggregate to better design our website and to share with advertisers.
For more information on the sharing of your information, please read our Privacy Policy.
Our technology partner provides us with comprehensive data and charity vetting on 2.2 million charities in the United States!
If you can’t find the non-profit you’re looking for, let us know by emailing hello@theactiveconsumer.com
Yes!
You can change the non-profit receiving your Round-Ups by visiting the organization’s Profile, tapping Add to Dashboard, and pressing ‘play’ on the Dashboard.
You can set up one-time or recurring donations from the dashboard using Schedule a Donation or by visiting the non-profits profile you’d like to donate to and setting up a donation.
You can modify your donation preferences in the Round-Up Settings screen.
By setting up your Persona, you can link the spare change from the purchases you make to up to five organizations that are reducing the negative impact from those purchases (in economics lingo, mitigating externalities.)
You can also send your Round-Up change to an individual organization, and schedule recurring and/or one-time donations to as many organizations as you would like!
Our strategic business partnerships handle all the heavy lifting when it comes to getting your donation where it needs to go.
At the end of the month, we authorize our payment processor to transfer the accrued donations to our Donor Advised Fund, who in turn sends the donations to the organizations of your choosing!
We never touch your banking information to ensure optimal security.
By visiting the Dashboard screen of Econus you will be able to see where your Round-Up donations are going as well as which organizations have one-time or recurring donation schedules setup.
Donations
Absolutely!
From the Dashboard you can select Schedule a Donation, which allows you to search through our list of 2.2 million non-profits and schedule one-time or recurring donations.
Or you can head to Discover and search for your organization’s Profile to set up one-time, recurring, or Round-Up donations.
Econus is your one-stop-shop for all things donating.
Yes. Econus will round up all transactions that are linked to the bank account, credit or debit card you have connected. It won’t matter whether that transaction happens at a physical location or online.
There can be several reasons for this. Your bank credentials may have changed or expired and will need to be reauthorized or your donation card may need to be changed.
Please go to Round-Up Settings and check your Linked Account to make sure your bank connection is working properly. If you cannot resolve the issues, please reach out to us through hello@theactiveconsumer.com
Econus was built for environmentally conscious individuals who are looking to take their Conscious Consumption to the next level.
By linking your transactions, and their unintended consequences, with the organization managing these consequences, we can create a more sustainable shopping experience.
When it comes to sending spare change to individual organizations, $0.37 cents here and $0.42 cents there may not seem like a lot, but when thousands of people are donating these amounts, it creates meaningful change!
The Round-Up feature of Econus is not meant to replace your current giving, but to supplement it and give purpose to your spare change.
Yes!
You can pause your monthly donations by ‘Pausing’ all Round-Ups and ‘Toggling Off’ all one-time and recurring donations on the Dashboard.
You can also pause donations by visiting Round-Up Settings and turning off all donations.
Because all donations are made through our 501(c)(3) Donor Advised Fund partner, you can have a donation receipt emailed to your linked email address by tapping the Hamburger Icon and selecting My Tax Deductions. This receipt will come from our Donor Advised Fund as they are the organization that receives and then distributes the funds.
You may also receive a donation receipt from your non-profit, but that would be at their discretion. You may reach out to your non-profit directly for a custom receipt.
Your donations, less fees, are 100% tax-deductible. However, we must recommend that you certify the tax-deductibility of your Econus donations with your tax advisor.
When a transaction ends in a whole dollar ($1.00, $2.00, etc), we round it up by your selected amount.
For example, if your whole dollar Round-Up amount is set to $1, and you buy a $6.00 latte, you will give $1 to your organization.
Donations are processed every 30 days from the day you created your account.
Econus keeps track of your change throughout the month. At the end of the month, the app will donate your accumulated change to the non-profit(s) or campaigns that you chose. You will see a new line on your card statement under the name of our Donor Advised Fund.
The average monthly Round-Up donation is $15-$20 per month.
Donations through Econus are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law, just like a normal donation to a tax-exempt non-profit organization.
We can’t give you legal or tax advice, but our 501(c)3 Donor Advised Fund partner goes through strict State by State Compliance to ensure 100% of your donations, less fees, are tax deductible.
For more information on our Donor Advised Fund, please see Section 6 of our Terms of Service.
We wanted to make sure that your donations were fully tax deductible (to the extent permitted by law).
Be partnering with a 501(c)3 donor advised fund, you can be sure that your donations never touch our accounts, and are instead transferred directly from your account to our partner’s tax deductible accounts via Stripe.
Round-Ups
As soon as your bank has fully processed the charge, it will show up in Econus!
You can view individual transactions in the Transactions screen. If you’d like to view all transactions that have been donated, head to Dashboard and click Past.
The bank integration is used to calculate the Round-Ups; when you sign into your bank, we do not see your credentials and are provided READ-ONLY access to your account.
This allows us to take a snapshot and Round-Up any new transactions. This is the only way for the amount of the Round-Up donations to be calculated.
Security is our top priority.
Your sensitive information never touches our servers. Bank authentication, transaction monitoring, and payment processing are handled by our trusted partners, all of which are subject to stringent federal regulations, including regular NACHA compliance audits and penetration testing. Any and all sensitive information is tokenized and transmitted over encrypted tunnels.
We use the same system trusted by Venmo, Acorns, Robinhood, Betterment, Digit, LendingClub, Upstart, Stripe, Coinbase, TransferWise, Justworks, Gusto, OnDeck, and Fundera, just to name a few.
We’ve got you covered.
Yes!
Credit cards and debit cards can both be used with the app. For example, if you have a checking account at Chase, but have a credit card with American Express, feel free to link both.
Once you finish the signup process and link your card, the app will keep track of your purchases, calculate the Round-Up amount and donate to the organization you’ve selected without you having to do anything else.
We Round-Up your purchases to the nearest dollar and use the spare change to support your purpose!
The “spare change” or Round-Up is calculated as the number of cents to the next whole dollar.
For example, if you bought a tank of gas for $25.62, the app would add $0.38 of “spare change” to your running tally for the month.
Had the gas cost $25.25, the change would have been $0.75.
If the gas had been $25.00 then you can set your whole dollar Round-Up amount in Round-Up Settings. By default, this is set to $1.
From within the app, click on Round-Up Settings. You will see a toggle switch next to each account – simply toggle the account you want disabled to “off.”
Bank & Card Information
Yes
Tap the Hamburger Icon, then Linked Accounts. From there you can link or unlink as many accounts as you’d like.
You will see all your purchases, as normal.
Your Round-Ups will appear on your monthly statement as a single donation to our Donor Advised Fund partner, who in turns transfers the donations to the non-profit of your choosing.
For additional information on how the process works with our Donor Advised Fund, see Section 6 our Terms of Service.
Your payment accounts like Venmo or Apple Pay, etc., are all linked to your bank account. All transactions that use the card linked to Econus will be included for Round-Ups.
Feel free to email us at hello@theactiveconsumer.com and we will double check for you.
Oftentimes banks with similar names will be hard to find, and we can point you in the right direction.
On some occasions, the configurations between your bank and Plaid are being worked on and they will show up in a few days.
Settings
Send us an email at hello@theactiveconsumer.com and we’ll help you out!
When you open Econus, click Log In followed by Forgot Password at the bottom of the screen.
If you are still having troubles, send us an email at hello@theactiveconsumer.com
You can download the iOS version here and the Android version here.
Fees
You can choose your level of service.
The free version allows users to make one-time. Industry standard credit card fees will be applied along with a small fee for Econus to keep the lights on. All donations are 100% tax deductible (the extent of the law) minus the credit card fees. We advise you to seek advice from your tax professional.
To use the Round-Up feature of Econus, you will need to sign up for one of our monthly subscription levels.
This allows you to link (at least) one card to the app giving us a READ-ONLY version of your transactions which is used to accrue your end-of-month donations.
$0/month | 2.9% + $0.3 processing fee + 5% Econus fee
$1/month | 0.8% processing fee + no Econus fee until $15 of donations, 4% after
$3/month | 0.8% processing fee + no Econus fee until $50 of donations, 2.5% after
$10/month | 0.8% processing fee + no Econus fee until $100 of donations, 1% after
for organizations
In-app
Send an email to hello@theactiveconsumer.com with the organization name, EIN, and contact person and we will them on there!
All non-profit organizations are vetted by our Donor Advised Fund. This partner ensures that all organizations are qualified by the IRS as a charitable organization and that they are still in good standing with federal and state regulators.
If you work at a non-profit organization that is not listed in the app, please email us at hello@theactiveconsumer.com
You can download the iOS version here and the Android version here.
Donations
Donations are processed 30 days after a user has created their account.
If their donation does not hit our minimum donation threshold of $20, our Donor Advised Fund partner will hold onto the donation until that threshold has been met.
You are able to see the name, email addresses and gross amount donated for all of your donors.
Non-profits will also receive donor phone numbers if provided by the donor.
With the information passed along with the donors donation.
Econus works with leading companies behind the scenes to keep data secure.
- Transactions are processed by Stripe, the same payment processor used by Facebook, Habitat for Humanity, NPR, and hundreds of other major organizations.
- The connection between Econus and the linked accounts provides a READ-ONLY history of transactions; it does not allow Econus to change the account or move funds. This link is established using our Payment Processor Partner, which is the same technology used by apps like Venmo.
- No credit card or bank credentials are ever stored on the app or on our servers, they are provided directly to our Payment Processing Partners.