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Kickstarter-Like Service For Charities?
First time accepted submitter chefmayhem writes "I'm one of a number of volunteer alumni trying to revive a high school summer science enrichment program, PGSS, cut unceremoniously by Pennsylvania in 2009 due to budget issues. Our alumni association has become a 501(c)3 non-profit and we're raising money through donations (over $100K from over 300 donors so far) to try to fund the program in 2012. The idea is that running the program this summer will give us momentum, and something to show off to potential corporate, philanthropic, and other funding sources. Trouble is, some potential donors are concerned that we won't raise enough to run the program this coming summer, and are hesitant to donate, even though the money will (one way or another) go to science education, even if we can't restore the program. Is there a web-based fundraising service, like kickstarter.com, but for charities, which will take pledges (and deal with credit card info, etc) but only charge donors if the goal is reached? It would also be important that non-donor sources (like some support from the state) can also count towards our fundraising goals. This could be a powerful tool for us, as well as other non-profits looking to make a dream come true."
An abundance of links makes sure that in the event you don't find the service you're looking for, you have leveraged /. to gain an audience with lots of wallets worldwide.
http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines They don't allow you to use kickstarter for charity. It's only for creative projects.
Just Giving
Really? Did you happen to miss:
No charity or cause funding.
Seriously, it's not even that far down in their list of guidelines.
Add a + to the link, and see where it goes to:
Long URL: goatse.bz/
Which is somewhat bullshit. "Oh hai! Want to donate for someone to build a tabletop holder for your iPad? Money us! Want to donate to a charity project? *NO*"
What is it about Kickstarter that makes it not applicable to charities?
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
This site might be what you're looking for: my10dollarfundraiser.com
Dirty pic alert!
IAIFARSIJDPOOTV - I Am In Fact A Reality Star; I Just Don't Play One On TV
that you've probably thought of is to get a big donor to pledge matching funds. My old college did this, with a dude pledging to match everything that was raised. Helps to have a suitable candidate for this kind of thing though, and my college is about 500 years old.
But good idea with the charge-when-target-reached site.
Soliciting charitable donations is still a very personal thing. Especially if you intend on getting beyond the nickle and dime range (under $50 US). It requires directly talking to potential donors. What's the benefit to your organization - you have 30-seconds, tops. They think they know what you want and why you want it. Money, but what are you really asking for? Operational (smells of on-going funds)? Grants (one time). Equipment? Services? What? Target your pitch to them in terms of what they already do. Not just a check for x dollars. Then you need to spell out what they are going to get in return? Name recognition? Tax write off? What are you going to give them? A plaque? Name wall? What? Have this before you call them. If you are asking for scholarship monies, you can easily handle that one.. Example... the Fred and Ethyl Mertz Scholarship Fund. Will you let them reach out to their employees? Will they match it at the corporate level?
Do this in person, and old-school. That means a paper letter (typeset in a nice font with good legibility and hand signed! (Yes, there is still a need for good penmanship!).
Once you get whatever you are asking for send them a thank you note - personally addressed listing what you received, how it was used and how it benefited whomever it benefited.
If they won't cough over the dough, ask them for a pledge or letter of intent. Something on the order of - XYZ Corp pledges the sum of $5,000 to ABC Organization if they make the goal of raising $150,000. Similar letters of intent will be counted towards funds raised.
This mechanism allows a lot of folks to intend to contribute, but gives them an out if you cannot make the goal. It also allows you to get public support on a nascent project that has little name recognition.
Otherwise you can continue with the bake sales.
http://www.donorschoose.org/
Untrue, it just has to be to a creative end. http://projectrepat.org/ went through Kickstarter and it is a non-profit;
I suppose you could think of it as wholly owned commercial sub-division,but it is not officially incorporated that
way as far as I know. What do they care what you use your "profits" for?
Were that I say, pancakes?
So start a kickstarter to build a kickstarter for raising money for charities.
One of those charities could also be a nonprofit to raise money like for another project like kickstarter.
Hey there--
StartSomeGood.com exists for exactly this purpose -- to help social good initiatives raise funds and grow a community of supporters. We use a similar model to Kickstarter, but with a "tipping point," which is the amount of funds you need to start doing good in the world. Definitely have a look, and if you have any questions, please reach out to me directly: alex at startsomegood dot com
Cheers,
Alex Budak
Co-Founder StartSomeGood
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://www.yourcause.com/ is specifically geared towards charities.
Seriously, I would think it take an attorney 2-4 hours to set up a trust account to hold donations under your terms, to be spent if your goals are met, or refunded if not. Of course then you'd have to track donations, but, uhm, you're doing that anyway aren't you???
It's call "Kickstarter" <-- Air quotes
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There used to be a cool site for this even before Kickstarter, called fundable.org, but apparently it went under. See some more info here: http://www.fundable.org/online-fundraising/
That page says that they're in the process of rebuilding it but until then they recommend:
http://www.chipin.com/
and
http://www.thepoint.com/
Also search the net for 'charity crowdfunding' to see if you stumble into anything interesting.
Good luck!
Give jolkona.org a look. As I understand it, it's pretty much exactly like kickstarter for charities.
Disclaimer: the UK is not the US, but I would be surprised if there are major differences in principle.
I'm concerned you have set up a charity but appear to have no knowledge of basic charity operation nor accounting - you HAVE arranged for accounting, I hope? In UK, you trustees who manage the charity have to prepare and file statutory accounts (in a very specific format, a UK charity's accounts differ substantially from those of a business' even down to some basic principles) as well as having other statutory obligations imposed upon you. I would be surprised if there aren't free booklets kicking around giving sound advice - many countries have a good quasi-independent charity regulator likely to produce such things, but I see the US's equivalent is the IRS, so I'm less hopeful, but surely somebody produces one?
Moving on to the topic at hand:
If you go to the American Red Cross donation page they give options for 4 specific purposes and one "Where The Need Is Greatest". If this was in the UK, and I assume the same applies in the US and most countries, the latter would result in a donation to the unrestricted fund i.e. they can spend it on whatever they consider appropriate within the purposes set out the the articles/trust deed. These donations would not normally be returned, if the charity ceased the trustees would probably donate to the most similar other charity.
Donations for the "Horn of Africa Drought" however would be recorded separately in the accounts as a donation to that restricted fund and it must be spent on that project. Should the project cease then in theory the Red Cross should communicate with the donor for permission to transfer the money to another project or return it to you. (Admittedly, for an organisation the scale of the Red Cross communicating with small donors would be impractical, so they very likely have a disclaimer that allows them to transfer funds on specific triggers like the cessation of a project.)
Therefore all you need to do is assure your donor that their money goes on exactly your project or else it will be returned. For you, it's just a matter of recording who from & what for in the books properly. Give donors a form with two check boxes - one which requires the money to be returned in the event the project is frustrated and one that gives permission for you to donate to an "a suitable alternative purpose for the advancement of scientific education" or whatever.
As far as websites go, here in UK I have clients having good experience with http://www.justgiving.com/ , they appear to have an American site http://www.firstgiving.com/ . They do take 5% of the donation so you might prefer direct giving, but there's minimal admin for you and its convenient for some donors (who might also feel more secure donating via the officialdom-ish of the big website).
You could of course to take pledges, so people only pay when you get enough pledges to finance the project. However pledges have the obvious habit of the pledger changing his mind by the time it actually comes to pay up. Even if you used some automatic system, you don't really want your donors having forgotten about it then going overdrawn or whatever. It's a problem and headache. I'd suggest you want to be in the position of having cash that you might have to return rather than having to chase people for cash later.
If you have to ask a basic question like "how do I raise money for a charity?" Then for the benefit of all the people you are trying to help, hire a development manager (or whatever their title is). Someone that's applied for hundreds of government grants, knows where to find money and how to raise it. Asking Slashdot is like going to the local knitting group and asking what distro to install.
My mother founded a successful non-profit. My sister is a development manager for a less-successful charity.
If you want to find the money and you don't know how, find an expert, rather than trying to get useful information from 1,000,000 people who aren't experts. Run fund raisers. Go hit up local businesses, especially the tech ones. If you lost state funding, look at what it takes to get it back. The money isn't gone, it's just now spent on worse things.
Learn to love Alaska
Call me biased, they're my employer after all (btw best job ever): Crowdrise allows you to raise money for your charity we handle pretty much everything. Anyone can become a fundraiser for your cause (as long as your cause is a non-profit.
-- sigs suck --
They seem more geared towards art and artists, but maybe they'd be a good resource to connect with. They can certainly handle 501(c)3 donations as a Kickstarter project I backed didn't get funded in time, but they went through Fractured Atlas as an alternate source. http://www.fracturedatlas.org/
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
1) Business logic in site: If funding time is going to overrun a calendar boundary of a year for a charity, do not allow creation of Kickstarter campaign
2) If a charity campaign fully funds, kick out a PDF receipt via email (I get Kiva receipts this way when I donate to them)
3) You only get a receipt and can count the deduction if a) the charity campaign was fully funded and Number 1 applies.
Simple answers? I'd argue yes for the most part. There is a huge potential here for them. Otherwise, it leaves a space for another site to rise to do the same thing, and eat up what Kickstarter does at the same time.
You might want to check out Crowdrise. I first read about it on Wired a couple of months ago.
Excuse me, wtf r u doin?
Alternatively you could have your donation link just be so people email you a pledge as above, and just make a note that these pledges are binding financially as long as $XXX,XXX in pledges is reached. And they can leave an email or contact where you can let them know once that amount has been reached (and so they owe you money)
Similarly you could tell people that you would like them to submit matching grants, where-in they dont pay until someone else actually donates.
Not exactly what you want, but there are lots of options.
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
For example, if I make a donation in December for $10,000, but as of Jan 1 the charity has still not reached it's goal and the money has not been collected, can I still count that as a deduction? What if it reaches it's goal before I file my taxes? Is it a 2011 or a 2012 deduction? What if it never reaches it's goal? There aren't simple answers to these questions,
Count it as a deduction on the date the money is taken from your card. Before that date you can't reasonably call it a donation, because you still have the money. And afterwards, you know that the funding has gone through.
Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
Cauzoom is project-based fundraising for nonprofits, with Kickstarter's goal/deadline/all-or-nothing approach. We (I'm the CEO) also offer a plethora of tools for helping your community leverage its own social reach, and invite businesses into the equation by offering them cause-marketing opportunities to sponsor projects and even sell gift cards that contribute to the project with every purchase. Plus it's lots of fun. :-)