Article: Assembly Bill 488 - Impact to donations to charities based in California

In January 2023, the state of California’s Assembly Bill 488 (AB-488) went into effect. Included in this bill is a provision that prohibits platforms like Groundswell from distributing funds on behalf of our users to California-based charities or charities registered to raise funds in California identified as “delinquent” by the California AG’s office. Delinquency means that the charity is not in good standing with the State of California due to failure to submit both California-specific reports as well as standard IRS reports. Note: the law also applies to charities that may be based in other states, but are registered with the State of California to conduct fundraising activities in California.

What this means for making donations on Groundswell: Groundswell runs its dataset of nonprofits on the platform against the list of charities currently with a “delinquent” status. While users can still donate to a charity that may be on the delinquent list, Groundswell will hold those donations and only send to the charity when it is back in good standing with the State of California. We check against the list whenever it is updated by the Attorney General’s office, and allow donations to be processed once the charity no longer has a delinquent status. The donations will be held for 90 days, and if after that time the charity is still in a delinquent status with the State of California, we will return the funds to the user.

As a Donor-Advised Fund, the Groundswell Charitable Foundation must comply with this requirement - which means we legally cannot disburse funds to any California-based charity or charity that is registered to raise funds in California that has not submitted all necessary forms to the Attorney General’s office.

If a charity wishes to find out more information about its status with the State of California, they can go to the CA Attorney General's website, or contact the Delinquency Program directly using the link here. It can take approximately 30-90 days to process forms and supporting documentation to remove a charity from the delinquent list.