Charity On Top creates unique, custom gift cards that can only be redeemed for charity giving and our cards allow the person receiving the gift card to choose the 501(c)(3) charity that they care about - and we have over one million to choose from. Sweet! It's so easy to choose a meaningful gift card your recipients will truly appreciate and remember. Personalize your card for free with your favorite photo or company logo.Charity On Top gift cards are also perfect for weddings, memorials, birthdays or any occasion where you see "No Gifts Please" or for the person who already has everything.
Charity On Top Foundation, Inc. (charityontop.org) has 33 customer reviews on Five Star Index, with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5.
Also known as
Charity On Top Foundation, charityontop.org
Website
charityontop.org
Category
Professional Organizations
Location
Pasadena, California
Listed on Five Star Index
2026
About these reviews
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The company replied to 100% of reviews.
Latest
Most recent review: January 2022.
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Reviews are shown as their authors wrote them. The company can reply, but cannot edit them.
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We've used Charity on Top for several years as our annual corporate Christmas gift. Even after receiving this gift a few times, the response from our partners is still overwhelmingly positive. Not only do they get the ability to chose a charity that's personal to them, but we feel good knowing that our gift is being put to good use.
The team at Charity on Top is fantastic to work with! They've always been quick to respond and answer any questions or solve any hiccups. I look forward to contacting them each year!
Response from Charity On Top Foundation, Inc.Jan 15, 2021
Amy, thank you so much for the great review and the years of corporate partnership! We love that your company chooses to gift these cards every year and, we appreciate the additional corporate partners who have also reached out to us to get cards of their own, because they loved the ones they received from you. We are so excited to partner with you and love that your company shows its generous heart year after year.
JO
JOANNE
A Great Idea
I needed a gift for a relative who has everything and this worked well to fill that need.
Response from Charity On Top Foundation, Inc.Jan 15, 2021
That's great to hear Joanne! We agree that a Charity On Top gift card is the perfect present for the person who has everything. Thank you for letting us know and taking the time to write a review!
MF
Martha F.
This was a great alternative to regular…
This was a great alternative to regular gift giving this year with my family. We will do that for our Christmas in the summer, hopefully, when we can be together. It was easy to send to many people at once and they get to choose their charity. Since you do not list charities, everyone had to research and come up with their own ideas. It was a good experience for them all. I like that you are up front with the fees, so we know how much is actually getting to the charity and I like the option to cover the fees.
Response from Charity On Top Foundation, Inc.Jan 12, 2021
Christmas in summer sounds like a really good idea and add charity into the mix, and it sounds absolutely perfect! We are thrilled that you everyone had a great experience, felt we were very transparent (as we strive to be) and that you felt so confident with us that you will come back for more cards - thank you! We really appreciate you taking the time to send in your nice review.
JB
Jeanne B.
Fun and Meaningful
I purchased gift cards for my daughter to give out to her friends for holiday gifts. It was nice to be able to give the girls the opportunity to select from a charity of their choice to support.
The site was fun and easy to navigate and the card selection images were awesome!! I will definitely purchase more in the future.
Response from Charity On Top Foundation, Inc.Jan 6, 2021
What an awesome way for your daughter and her friends to learn more about the gift of giving and charity! Glad to know you had a great experience on the site and giving those cards to her was easy. A of time goes into curating the art in our shop, and we are glad you liked the artwork. Thanks for your review!
KJ
KRISTEN J.
Kathy is an absolute angel and helped…
Kathy is an absolute angel and helped with my last minute customer gifts . Which by the way, needed to customized!
Charity on Top not only does amazing work but they are one amazing team of people!!
Response from Charity On Top Foundation, Inc.Jan 5, 2021
Thank you, Kristen! It is a pleasure to provide beautiful custom Charity On Top gift cards for you and your team!
ST
Steve
Great concept, poor execution (initially) but GREAT FOLLOW UP!
UPDATED: First, I contacted the charities I donated to through Charity on Top. They all received their funds, so no concerns there. Also, I see that COT also distributes within a week of receipt now, which is a huge improvement going forward. I've changed my rating from a 3 to 5 because of how responsive they have been AND because of the upgrade. Cheers!
First, let me state that I regret having to leave a somewhat negative review. My employer generously allows us to convert unused PTO into contributions and I was very happy to find all my favorite charities participating. However, I was disappointed to learn two things about redeeming a gift card for a charity. First, the charity receives the funds anywhere from 30-60 days from redemption by check. I've contacted my charities and none have received notice that contributions are coming. I understand there are reasons for a time gap (verification of the funds, etc) but that seems to be an extraordinarily long time. I don't know if the donation funds are kept separate from operations - if they aren't, a cash lean operation could be tempted to use them to pay expenses until other funds come in. Second, my charities only received 85% of what I donated. Again, I don't begrudge COT from taking fees to cover costs, but that seems high as well. If they could close the time gap and lower the fees to under 10%, that would be a confidence boost for me personally.
Response from Charity On Top Foundation, Inc.Dec 31, 2020
Hi Steve, we so appreciate your questions and are happy to address them.
When you buy Charity On Top gift cards directly from charityontop.org you have the option to cover the 3.75% we charge to the charities. And, it's awesome - about 95% of our customers do this so we then send 100% to the charities when the card is redeemed. We are full-time volunteers so it is easier for us to keep the maximum amount of money flowing to charities.
We started COT because we know how hard it is to raise money, so we are incentivized and motivated to move that money to charities, and as much of it as we can. But our website is only one place to buy our cards. In order to invite so many more people like you to give the gift of charity through our cards, we utilize amazing 3rd party platforms and partners to help sell and distribute our cards, including employee incentive programs and direct to consumer gift card portals like Amazon. They all have back-end fees to operate and each of them charges a small amount to do this. When we pay the charities, we let them know a card was redeemed for them, and if it was originally bought by a 3rd party, there can be up to 15% taken out of their gross amount. The charities are given a link to FAQ's with their check, along with direct contact info to ask us any questions. Few have inquired further about the 15% that these 3rd parties charge, but once they understand it, they are grateful to be getting these funds without having to spend any money or employing more fundraising staff to receive them. They like the free money and we like giving them the free money. The larger we get, the more cards we sell, the better discounts we can negotiate with our 3rd parties. So the more cards the merrier for everyone!
As you can imagine, our process for sending checks to a variety of 1.8 million charities is logistically pretty complicated and now that we are growing and scaling at a very rapid pace, we are in the process of transitioning to an automatic payment system. We are hoping to roll this out by March 1. We don't have email addresses for all the charities, so we can't alert them of a payment that is coming without the time and expense of a paper mailing. But with our new rollout, they will be able to be notified in advance.
And, we just switched over to paying our charities at the end of each week! (updated 02/19/21) Now, that's fast!!
Our low operating funds are kept separate from our big charity payment funds.
Hope that helps answer your questions! Please do email us again at [email protected] if you have any questions or want to discuss further. We are also happy to schedule a call.
Charity On Top is about giving and we live and breathe charity. Thank you and your employer for choosing to give generously and intentionally to charity.
THANK YOU so much for the updated review!! I can't even tell you what that means to us that you would take the time to update and improve your review! We have been working very hard to improve - especially with charity payments! We created and implemented an entire automated back-end now for charity checks and after 5 weeks of work and refinement, we are super excited to pay the charities faster than ever. We call our weekly charity payday - "Fund-ay Monday!" Cheers and thank you for helping us to be the best we can be for all charities and their awesome donors! :)
CL
CL
A Great Gift
I gifted Charity in Top gift cards this year for the holidays and it was a big hit with all that’s going on in the world. My only wish is that it were possible to make a donation in someone’s name.
Response from Charity On Top Foundation, Inc.Dec 31, 2020
This has been a very tough year for so many and we agree that the gift of charity is what is needed, and we are glad your family thought so too. On our website, you can search any charity and make a direct donation to them in someone's name. If you have another idea for naming, please do email us at [email protected]. We would love to hear it. Our customers come up with so many great ideas! Thank you for your review!
JT
Jodi T.
Great gift idea!
Fast delivery and easy to use. Perfect gift idea for someone who has everything!
Response from Charity On Top Foundation, Inc.Dec 30, 2020
We agree! Glad you found our Charity On Top cards to be the perfect "present" for your someone. Thanks for being a great repeat customer and for your review!
