P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds, Inc.

Once a charity has completed the initial document registration they will show up on our Newly Registered Charities list and we will accept contributions for them.

When we receive their first contribution the charity will need to complete a two part process to become fully registered:

First, the charity will need to register for access to their PEF online account where they’ll be able to see all their gifts and grants. We will send personalized registration information to the officially registered email address. This will happen automatically once they are in our system – no need to request it from us.

Second, they’ll need to register for Masav – Direct Deposit from within their PEF online account. By signing up for direct deposit, the charity agrees to have all their grants sent via direct deposit in NIS. Once their bank information has been approved by Clearshift, our payment provider in Israel, the charity will be considered fully registered.

All charities must sign up for Direct Deposit in order to receive grants from PEF.  We do not issue grants in US dollars.

Please email us at documents@pefisrael.org to update your charity’s description.

Please send an email to documents@pefisrael.org to update your official contact information.

PEF is now pleased to accept donations via credit card through an online fundraising company called CauseMatch. Participating charities – including PEF – feature a Donate button on their website which enables donors to make recommended contributions to approved charities via a dedicated PEF credit card gateway. The gateway is hosted by Stripe which offers specially discounted per transaction processing fees for a 501(c)3 of 2.2% + 30¢ for non-AmEx transactions and 3.5% for AmEx transactions. As always, PEF does not add any fees or handling charges to process these transactions.

CauseMatch will send us bulk payments once a week which you will see on your PEF online Ledger as “PEF – CauseMatch donations” and there will be a batch number included. It takes a few weeks between when they get the contribution and we get the payment. We get the amounts after the fees have been taken out by the credit card companies (the NET amount of the gift after deductions).

There is an orange button at the bottom of your PEF online Ledger and Dashboard called “Download Online Donation Details” which will download a spreadsheet with all the gifts received from the Donate Now button on PEF’s website only. Use the batch number to match specific gifts to a particular bulk payment.

A blank spreadsheet means that no data for donations have come through the pefisrael.org site directly. It takes a few weeks between when CauseMatch gets the contribution and we get the payment. Please note that the batch numbers will only be available once we’ve received the payment from CauseMatch. Donations made recently, within the last 2 weeks, will not have batch numbers yet. But if you see a gift on the spreadsheet without a batch number then you’ll know the gift was processed and is on its way.

If you have previously signed up with CauseMatch and get donations from other websites please login to your CauseMatch account to see donor information as usual. Contact CauseMatch at support@causematch.com for any issues/assistance with your credit card donations.

We issue grants once a week, typically on Fridays, and the charities get the money the following week on Wednesday or Thursday morning depending on banking conditions in Israel. The grant will be dated Friday but you should see the funds in your account on the following Wednesday/Thursday morning. Holidays in the US and in Israel may alter/delay the grant schedule.

In order to keep our overhead low and streamline our processing, we issue grants once a charity’s balance has reached $100 or more. We do not inform each recipient charitable organization of an impending grant. Charities can consult their PEF online ledger to see their current gifts and grants.

PEF is now pleased to accept donations via credit card through an online fundraising company called CauseMatch. Participating charities – including PEF – feature a Donate button on their website which enables donors to make recommended contributions to approved charities via a dedicated PEF credit card gateway. The gateway is hosted by Stripe which offers specially discounted per transaction processing fees for a 501(c)3 of 2.2% + 30¢ for non-AmEx transactions and 3.5% for AmEx transactions. As always, PEF does not add any fees or handling charges to process these transactions.

CauseMatch will send us bulk payments once a week which you will see on your PEF online Ledger as “PEF – CauseMatch donations” and there will be a batch number included. It takes a few weeks between when they get the contribution and we get the payment. We get the amounts after the fees have been taken out by the credit card companies (the NET amount of the gift after deductions).

There is an orange button at the bottom of your PEF online Ledger and Dashboard called “Download Online Donation Details” which will download a spreadsheet with all the gifts received from the Donate Now button on PEF’s website only. Use the batch number to match specific gifts to a particular bulk payment.

A blank spreadsheet means that no data for donations have come through the pefisrael.org site directly. It takes a few weeks between when CauseMatch gets the contribution and we get the payment. Please note that the batch numbers will only be available once we’ve received the payment from CauseMatch. Donations made recently, within the last 2 weeks, will not have batch numbers yet. But if you see a gift on the spreadsheet without a batch number then you’ll know the gift was processed and is on its way.

If you have previously signed up with CauseMatch and get donations from other websites please login to your CauseMatch account to see donor information as usual. Contact CauseMatch at support@causematch.com for any issues/assistance with your credit card donations.

When PEF issues a grant to a charity the funds will be deposited in NIS directly to their Israeli bank account. Israeli charities that have registered with PEF will receive Direct Deposit registration information once their account shows activity.

First the charity will need to register for access to their PEF online account where they’ll be able to see all their gifts and grants.

Then they’ll need to register for Masav – Direct Deposit. By signing up for direct deposit, the charity agrees to have all their grants sent via direct deposit in NIS.

All charities need to sign up for Direct Deposit in order to receive grants from PEF.  We do not issue grants in US dollars.

Grants approved each week are typically funded on Friday and converted into NIS the following Monday, with the MASAV deposits being made overnight on Tuesday/Wednesday. The grant will be dated Friday but you should see the funds in your account on the following Wednesday/Thursday morning. Holidays in the US and in Israel can delay the arrival of funds.

Our financial services provider in Israel has committed to PEF that the exchange rate will always be based on the Bank of Israel official daily rate, known as the “Sha’ar Yatzig”, on the date of the exchange. That rate can always be verified on the Bank of Israel web site: www.boi.org.il. The effective rate you receive will be around 0.3% below the official rate.

The exact exchange rate will be included in the payment notification that you will receive from Clearshift when a payment has been made to your account.

While PEF does not charge any fee for processing and delivering the grant, we do pass on to our grantees the standard fee charged by Clearshift, our financial services provider in Israel. Their fee of 0.25% is deducted from each transfer. There is no “hidden fee” in the exchange rate because, unlike the banks, the exchange rate will always be exactly the official rate with no markup.

For individual grants of $125k and above, Clearshift automatically provides a tiered discounted fee such that a single grant of $250k will result in a discount of 10%, 35% on $500k and 50% on $1mm.  Single grants of $1mm will use the same sliding scale and will actually see discounts greater than 50%.

For more information on Clearshift Services see:

Clearshift Profile  and  Clearshift – Nonprofits

1. Speed – Direct deposits will be available in your NIS account immediately upon arrival.
2. Clarity –  Funds are deposited electronically into your account and a full listing of the exchange rate and any fees will accompany each transaction.
3. Savings – The cost of depositing a foreign check (or receiving a foreign wire) and converting it to NIS varies from one organization to another, but it is not unusual for banks to take as much as 1.5% in various fees and rate markups and to delay crediting your account. Clearshift provides no “hidden fee” in the exchange rate because, unlike the banks, the exchange rate will always be exactly the official rate with no markup.

No. Direct deposits are only made in NIS.

Clearshift does have some incentive and rebate programs for PEF grantees that open an account with Clearshift. Clearshift should be contacted directly for the details.

While we don’t encourage speculation on future exchange rates, we acknowledge that there are times when it may be important to an amutah to maintain the original USD value of a grant until the funds are ready to be expended in Shekels. Our recommended solution is to use a “Patzam” (פצ”מ). These are Dollar-linked deposits offered by all of the major Israeli banks. Once the full value of the grant funds is received by your amutah in Shekels, you can place the funds in a “Patzam” so that your deposit will retain its USD value. Depending on the maturity of the deposit, bank may offer interest on these deposits. When the deposit matures, the value of the Shekel deposit will track any changes the value of the Dollar from the time of the deposit until the maturity.

If the Dollars are actually needed to make payments due in USD inside or outside of Israel, you may wish to contact our provider Clearshift regarding opening an account to make foreign currency payments.

No. Other than the standard per-statement line charges (usually between 1 and 2 Shekels) that your bank may charge for activity in your account, Shekel deposits through MASAV avoid the foreign currency transaction fees and correspondent fees that are typically charged for wires or check deposits.

No. Your registration is not connected to any specific grant. The next time a grant is made to you, it will be made via a MASAV deposit. You will receive an email notice from Clearshift on the day the deposit appears in your account, which will include the relevant details of the grant but NOT the list of gifts and donors relevant to the grant. For that information you’ll need to login to your PEF online account.

You will receive an email notification from Clearshift showing the exchange rate and the calculation of the NIS amount deposited.

The Clearshift email DOES NOT PROVIDE DETAILS REGARDING THE GIFTS. You will need to login to your PEF ONLINE account and check the LEDGER and DASHBOARD FOR THE DETAILS.

If you signed up for credit card processing through CauseMatch then you’ll need to login to your CauseMatch account for details of any credit card contributions sent to PEF.

The deposit will be in NIS under the name of our Israeli trustee Mishmeret. Login to your PEF online account to find gift information on your LEDGER and DASHBOARD.

Login to your PEF online account at www.pefisrael.net

In the black menu bar at the top click on My Account and then on Update Direct Deposit Contacts.

No. We do not allow charities to distribute our bank information since the information can change without notice. Failure to comply with this rule can result in the suspension of a charity’s account.

Please tell your donors to send an email to info@pefisrael.org asking for our wire instructions. We do not give this information to charities because then we will receive “mystery” funds and not know where to allocate them- resulting in DELAYS in your receiving the funds. We must have a direct series of emails with the donors to insure that we can identify the funds properly and acknowledge the donors correctly.

We want to make sure that every charity receives their donations as soon as possible during this difficult time.

Please ask your donors to send an email to info@pefisrael.org asking for stock instructions. We do not allow charities to distribute our broker information since our information can change without notice.

First the donor should request our current stock instructions. Then they must send us the required notification so that they can send the shares to our broker. When our broker notifies us that the shares have arrived then we sell the shares and receive cash from the sale. The total cash proceeds will be the amount available for the donor’s grant recommendation(s).

The donor will be acknowledged for the average value of the stock on the day that we receive it (the NON-CASH VALUE of the shares). However, the actual proceeds realized from the sale of the stock may be higher or lower, depending upon market fluctuations beyond our control. We will not know the exact amount of the proceeds until we receive the broker’s payment, typically within a week after the sale. The total CASH proceeds that we receive will be the amount available for the donor’s recommendation. Their acknowledgment letter for tax purposes will only show the non-cash value of the shares, not the cash proceeds amount. But we will notify the donor of both amounts once the gift has been fully processed.