Anyone can name a hospital, a registrar, a landlord, or a non-profit. Not anyone gets the money. Here's how we tell them apart — and what every contributor sees before they pay.
Every payee on Gish is in exactly one of these three stages at any given moment. The stage is shown to every contributor, on every contribution screen, before any money moves.
Every contribution screen shows the stage badge next to the payee name. No tier is hidden. No tier is renamed. You always know which level of trust you're paying into.
Bright Path Tutoring (LLC) · Newly added by the wisher · entity verified, sanctions clean, bank match. No human conversation yet.
Emory University Bursar's Office · Gish has confirmed bank details and authorised receivers with the registrar. Disbursement standard.
Atlanta Community Food Bank · 47 successful disbursements · 0 disputes · same-day available · listed in payee directory.
Stage badges appear on every contribution screen, every receipt, and every outcome-fund detail page.
Higher stages don't just earn a fancier badge — they unlock real operational privileges. Limits go up, hold periods shrink, disbursement velocity increases.
Because trust is a continuum, not a switch. A new payee shouldn't be banned (legitimate small non-profits are new every day) but also shouldn't get same-day $250k disbursement. Three stages let real new payees join while protecting contributors from cold-start fraud. Stage 1 is the on-ramp; Stage 3 is the high-throughput lane; Stage 2 is the working state for most established entities.
The 24-hour figure is the SLA for our review team to make initial outreach. The full Stage 2 review can take up to 5 business days if the counterparty (hospital, registrar, landlord) is slow to confirm. The payee stays in Stage 1 until Stage 2 completes — funds keep moving, just at Stage 1 limits and hold periods.
No. The reputation graph requires actual completed disbursements with no disputes. There's no "fast-track" or "premium" stage advancement. Money has to move successfully — three times — for Stage 3.
Yes. A substantiated dispute, a sanctions hit, a beneficial-owner change, or a 12-month period of inactivity drops the payee back to Stage 2 (or Stage 1 in serious cases). Downgrades trigger immediate notice to all linked outcome funds and an automatic hold on pending disbursements pending review.
Yes — same three stages, with KYC instead of KYB at Stage 2. Individual payees go through ID verification (driver's licence or passport), bank account name match, and sanctions screen. Stage 3 unlocks identically — three completed disbursements without dispute.
Stage 1 uses the local registry equivalent (Companies House UK, Bundesanzeiger DE, etc.). Stage 2 uses local KYB partners (we work with regulated KYB vendors in 38 countries; the rest fall back to manual review). Stage 3 works the same way globally. Some jurisdictions have stricter caps that override our defaults — disclosed on the payee profile.
No. Social-media verification is identity-only. Stage 3 specifically requires completed disbursements with no disputes — i.e. money has actually moved successfully, multiple times, through Gish. They're different signals.
Every contribution screen on Gish shows the badge. If you're a payee and want to advance: complete clean disbursements, and the system promotes you automatically.