Yes, but with some caveats.

First, it's important to note that gift cards sold by Shopify need to be redeemed in order for the money to be made available. In other words, selling the gift card will not release the money to you or anyone else automatically. In many jurisdictions, accounting and other regulations require stores to hold money for all outstanding gift cards in a sort of "reserve" or "escrow" account so Shopify takes care of that for you.

So, in short, you can sell gift cards with funds destined for other sources but they must be redeemed first, which does add some additional steps, but it also has some advantages. 

Here's a common way to make this work:

  1. If you haven't already, activate the gift card feature. 
  2. Create a gift card product. Use variants to create available denominations. 
  3. Next, create "regular" products for each person or business you want customers to be able to donate to. If you plan on doing everything digitally, you should either set the product to digital or set the weight to have free shipping. If you have a fee for making the donation (such as the cost to mail a check), you can set up shipping rules accordingly.
  4. In general, it's a good idea to put these in a collection to make organizing and linking to the options easier.
  5. Modify your "Gift card creation" email template to include a note about how the process works. Keep in mind this template is used for all gift cards (including ones for your own store), so you may want to add a line such as "If you bought this gift card to donate to a person or organization, please <a href="/collections/donations/">click here</a> to make your selection. Use the gift card code in this email during checkout." You'll need to change the language and URL to meet your needs.
  6. If you're using ShopKeeper gift card apps, we can typically help you add this link to the gift card experience. 

Here's how this will work for buyers:

  1. Customer buys a gift card for a certain amount.
  2. Customer is linked to the collection that has the "regular" products you created. They pick which person, organization or business they want to donate to.
  3. They add the product (really a donation) to their cart and checkout as normal.
  4. Instead of paying with a card or other traditional method, they enter the gift card code. 
  5. If the amount is less than the total purchased, the gift card will retain the balance. If the customer buys more than the gift card value, they will automatically be asked to enter payment information for the balance.
  6. Upon checkout and once the order is marked as fulfilled, your funds should be released as normal.

Some notes to be aware of:

  • This method does offer the advantage of splitting donations among multiple choices or even collecting higher donation amounts than the original gift card was for. 
  • Be sure that customers looking to make donations are told exactly where to enter the code so they don't end up accidentally entering payment information.
  • There may be accounting factors to consider because you are technically booking these transactions as revenue. In some cases, this could be taxable or you might be able to write it off as a charitable donation (if the organization is a registered charity). Check with an accounting professional.
  • You should maintain meticulous records about how donations are collected, redeemed and sent out. Check with an accounting or legal professional in your area, but sloppy or incomplete records could cause serious legal or financial issues down the road. 
  • Make sure you have a way to process the payments accurately, especially if you have multiple organizations or people receiving donations. There is also no automated way to handle calculating or sending payments.
  • Partially or fully unused gift cards will not be made available until they are redeemed in full.
  • Technically, the gift card codes you send can be used to buy any product on your store, not just the donation products. In those cases, your store will still get the funds.