Sevadar Foundation asks donors to say what a restricted gift should do before they send it, because a restriction the foundation cannot honor leaves money that must be held and cannot be used for anything else. Asking first means you find out while it is still your decision.
A restricted gift is a gift given for a stated purpose, and the restriction is binding on the organization that accepts it. That is the part people are surprised by.
It is not a preference. Once accepted, a restriction is an obligation, and money that cannot be used as restricted cannot simply be used for something else.
What can go wrong with a restricted gift?
- The restriction is narrower than the work. A gift restricted to one activity inside a division that does six is a gift the division has to account for separately and may not be able to spend at the rate it arrives.
- The restriction names something that does not exist. A donor restricts to a piece of the work they read about somewhere, or to a version of the work that has moved on. Now there is money that must be held.
- The restriction is to the wrong organization. This one is specific here: people conflate Valor Medica with Valor Villages Inc. They are separate corporations with separate EINs, and a gift to one is not a gift to the other. The distinction.
How should you give a restricted gift?
So the rule is simple: tell us what you want the money to do before you send it, and we will tell you honestly whether it can do that. If it cannot, you find out while it is still your decision rather than after it has become our problem.
This is not a way of discouraging restrictions. Restrictions are often exactly right — a donor who cares about one specific thing and says so is easier to serve well than a donor who gives generally and is quietly disappointed. The problem is never the restriction; it is the restriction nobody discussed.
This is easier here than at most nonprofits
As of August 2026, the foundation is funded entirely by its founder. There is no giving form, no processing pipeline and no volume. Every conversation about a gift is a conversation with a person, which is the condition under which the ask-first rule actually works. Support this work.
What can a restricted gift not buy?
No restriction, at any level, obtains access to protected information or influences a CareGuard finding. Those are not negotiable and not the foundation’s to negotiate — the protections are federal. Independence and boundaries.
Frequently asked questions
What does “donation restricted” mean?
A restricted donation is a gift given for a stated purpose, and once a nonprofit accepts it, that purpose binds the organization. It is not a preference the nonprofit can set aside later. Money that cannot be used the way the donor restricted it cannot simply be moved to something else, so it has to be held. That is why the purpose is worth settling before the gift is sent.
What is the difference between restricted and unrestricted donations?
A restricted donation can only go to the purpose the donor named, and the nonprofit is bound by that once it accepts the gift. A general gift carries no named purpose. Neither is wrong. A donor who cares about one specific thing and says so is often easier to serve well than one who gives generally and is quietly disappointed. What causes trouble is a restriction nobody discussed.
Can a nonprofit use restricted funds for something else?
Not simply. Money that cannot be used as restricted cannot be moved to another use, so a restriction that is narrower than the work, or that names work that has moved on, leaves money that must be held. Sevadar Foundation avoids that by asking what you want the gift to do before you send it, while the purpose is still your decision.
Is a gift to Valor Medica the same as a gift to Valor Villages?
No. People often confuse Valor Medica with Valor Villages Inc., but they are separate corporations with separate EINs, and a gift to one is not a gift to the other. A restriction to the wrong organization is one of the three common ways a restricted gift goes wrong, so name the organization you mean when you tell the foundation what the gift should do.
Can a restricted gift buy access to CareGuard findings?
No. No restriction, at any level, obtains access to protected information or influences a CareGuard finding. Those protections are federal, so they are not the foundation’s to negotiate. A restriction can direct what the money does. It cannot change what CareGuard finds or who is allowed to see it.