Tax ID Issue on Grantee Portal

Darla Vasquez
Darla Vasquez
Ninth Anniversary
in Blackbaud Grantmaking™ General Discussions
Hi there -


I was checking to see if anyone else was experiencing the same issue we are where our nonprofits are going to the grantee portal to begin their application for funding and when they enter their tax id, they are all suddenly getting the error message below:

The Tax ID that you entered was not found in the IRS database. Please check your entry. If it is correct, and your ID is still not recognized, we advise that you contact www.guidestar.org directly to resolve your issue.


There is nothing wrong with their tax id because I have checked Guidestar, but as you can imagine our call volume has increased significantly as well as our emails from our grantees who we just sent out invites to and are in dire needs of funds due to the Covid-19 situation. I was told there is no eta for resolution and that the workaround was to uncheck the box to confirm the tax id with the IRS database (a very counterintuitive thing to do and extra work for our staff) but was wondering if anyone else was experiencing this to help maybe escalate a remedy here.


With the pandemic and economic situation in our area, our nonprofits are really in need of support and having these issues right now with our portal just adds to their stress and makes our company look bad (especially since they don't know this is a vendor product.) If you have any other suggestions that don't seem to circumvent the process, I would also be very appreciative to hearing those too please.


Thank you so much,

Darla Vasquez

Southern California Edison

Comments

  • Cheryl Dabat
    Cheryl Dabat
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant

    I had the
    same issue yesterday with a grantee.  I thought it was just
    their EIN number.  This is a real problem.  If you take
    off the EIN number check, anyone would be able to apply online and
    submit an application.

     

    Please keep
    us posted when you hear about a fix.

     

    Cheryl
    Dabat

    Grants
    Manager

    The Heinz
    Endowments

     





  • Deena Lauver Scotti
    Deena Lauver Scotti
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant
    If this is still an issue, you can remove the requirement for them to have to be in the IRS database to enter the application. Once the application is pulled into BBG, you can do Tax Status Verify and see if that works for you. If it doesn't work, confirming the org in Guidestar is the best bet. 


    Deena Lauver Scotti

    Vice President for Program Administration

    Missouri Foundation for Health

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