We're a registered charity, trying to enroll for a charity account on PayPal. At the moment our account is limited until we can prove that we are a charity, which is causing lots of issues as we had been relying on PayPal due to the bank dragging its feet with setting up our online banking - we had been basically not using the bank account until we could get this set up, and using Paypal instead. Since we actually ARE a charity it seems it should be straightforward to register as such, but apparently not.
When you follow the steps to enroll as a charity on Paypal, you're redirected to a form that is all centred around providing proof of business. Since we are a charity, not a business, some of these files we just can't provide (proof of business registration, for example), and others I can provide but they're not exactly accurate (adding trustees and the charity director both as "executives" for example). I have tried uploading our charity certificate to the business registration field, but it's rejected - there's actually nowhere to upload the charity certificate, and you would think it would be relevant as proof of a charity. I have contacted Paypal about this and they have said they understand this dilemma about the form being aimed at businesses, but it's still not any clearer how we make our charity fit into their application form for a business. We were actually following this guide to start, https://www.paypalobjects.com/digitalassets/c/EMEA/messaging_documents/453776_PayPal_Charity_Guide_t... and it mentions that we need trustee details, the charity number, certificate the website, date charity was established etc, but there is actually no-where to enter this info on the form we're directed to.
We seemed to be getting somewhere by sending all relevant documents via the messaging service, but nothing came of that, either. Paypal has refused to lift the limits on the account for multiple reasons so far - one was that our charity address was a PO Box. It isn't, two seconds of checking it out on Google would have suggested as much, and it isn't possible for a charity to be registered to a PO Box in the UK in the first place, so it was utterly baffling. We've put quite a few fundraising plans on hold as we were planning to use Paypal for donations. We're confused and fed up. Is it worth pursuing this or should we just switch to another service? How can it be so hard for a charity to prove it's a charity?
