I don’t have parts to offer, but I guess I’d be OK with throwing money into a “SFJ operating expenses” pot. What would need to be covered? Booths at events that representatives are able to attend but can’t get for free is understandable, but am I reading correctly that it would also end up covering the costs flying people around the country to go events as representatives? To me that’s not quite right, that’s just too easy of way to attend big tournaments like Evo without paying a lot, and that really should fall upon the representative to cover himself since that’s more like a vacation and less like a charitable act. Sorry if I sound too cynical, but that’s my take on it, correct me if I’m wrong.
Plus taking into account that more people might be interested in this, while some reps may not be able to make it to tournaments (Say NY modders at a SoCal Tournament, or vice versa), then there can be reps for certain regions.
No, absolutely nothing can be saved from raffle money.
SFJ staying alive has to be done by people willing to donate to help stay.
Unless we get more people not wanting 100% for charity.
Then you can save.
Nerrage is not going to Evo 2012 for SFJ.
He has no money to attend.
He also does not want to get donations for him to fly to Evo again.
Last year, Tech Talk got Nerrage to Evo.
I don’t think they will do it again.
Nerrage is going to Final Round and CEO though.
And that is with his own money.
Especially with the concept of something like shirts - add something like $5 onto the costs and explain it as a direct donation towards OPEX.
If people will pay $20-25 for a shirt, I imagine most will pay $30 knowing that the extra is going directly to operational expenses of a legitimate, verified non-profit charity?
I would (will), anyway.
That -is- what happened, but the money was given to me, not SFJ. I even told them not to, but they sent me with airfare money. I paid for all of my own expenses while there (food, transport, etc.). Heck, I didn’t have enough (despite eating pretzels and pizza gifted to me from Joe), I cut into my rent for next month, and had to ask for money from my mentor to stay afloat.
The current events I have planned out are things I can take a weekend drive to and pay for that myself. I’m not advocating another trip to Evo. I know it’ll be stupid expensive at the time of year it’s scheduled (Independence Day weekend, essentially). I’m not trying to save money to go on stupid trips. I’m trying to save enough to even have a panel, possibly pay for the entry badges of people who will volunteer there, etc. If we had a lot more in donations, I’d go for 100% all day, but in short, we don’t. It’s not anybody’s fault, donor or not. We’re just a small organization right now, us giving 100% means giving away everything we raise, everything we had donated, and are left without much to continue our next stick on. Yes, by en large, everything is donated by people, but there are still people who will do it for shipping, etc.
I’m only trying to scrap together what money we can have. As it is, though, without money, we can’t even “buy” (through bank account minimum deposits, legal fees, etc.) a legitimate donation paypal. Hell, the one that’s there still has my name attached, doesn’t help credibility one bit.
But, as reluctant as I am, I’m not one to squander everybody’s opinions.
Well, then we’ll likely not have enough for a panel. And if we have enough for that, then there’s no money for a future panel. Unless if people donate. And people are already giving parts. And service, and stuff, and why would they throw in money? They’ve already donated. Old donors? They’ve already donated. Maybe they will donate again. But that’s no guarantee. And then we have no money, and lets say we get a free panel? Okay, but the person with the stick for the next project would like shipping covered. But there’s no money to pay them. Free panel goes to waste, because of no stick.
While we could potentially pull another “send Nerrage to Evo” round of donations at the last minute, this is still limited to how effectively and how much it’ll work.
All this did was make me realize that this is even harder and more depressing.
Getting a donate button would require multi-state filing. The cost would easily be over $1,000, just in state fees. And the form is scary. http://www.multistatefiling.org/p_checklist.htm And I’d sure as hell need a lawyer to make sure I don’t miss some stupid detail. Do you think we’d even be able to get the kind of donation money in to even pay for the state fees? I don’t.
I’m beyond knowing what to even do.
Realistically, we need to start getting donations from folks here first.
The problem with much of the material I had read (I admit, I copped out at about 7 or so articles), is that none of it dealt with something like us. It was mostly organizations digging into wealthy people’s pockets for donations. All donations. Like, it hardly seemed like what we’re doing. I know we’re trying to raise money. But these, they just seem like… Well, firstly, 10 times larger than us, and more about soliciting donations. We actually provide a product, it hardly ever seemed like any of this dealt with products. Now, I know, I’ve only read probably 1% of what’s there, but still, we’re just indifferent.
I guess maybe I’ll start going through the yellow pages for attorneys… see what we can maybe try to do, someone better versed in this kind of law…
Name: TRiXWoN
Shirt size: Adult XL
American Apparel? YES
**One-off color? **YES Orange if possible, or green if not
Number of shirts this type: 1
Tilted or Straight logo vote: Tilted
Country of Destination: USA
**PayPal Address:**c simpson 01 at g mail dot co m
Wanted to get a shirt for my kid but all youth sizes are way too big (hes only 1)
A local organization I’ve recently joined is in the process of getting 501 (3)c status. Just overhearing the stuff they’re talking about…
Ok guys, we have 14 orders and need about 10 more to be made. Also, please send your PayPal addresses to Nerrage ASAP.
Exactly what I see SFJ as from the beginning and now.
Okay, so I haven’t been following SFJ for that long, but I think the idea is a great one. I have some experience doing non-profits (I grew up helping my parents organize multi-hundred-grand events for Children’s Hospitals and other non-profits), and (as I mentioned a bit earlier) recently did a charity marathon for Child’s Play that raised $7k. I bring this up so that I don’t sound like I’m blowing smoke out my ass.
So here’s my advice: Give up on trying to make SFJ a 501©(3) NPO. The overhead for that is an absolute bitch, and the advantages don’t outweigh the disadvantages at this scale. When you’re dealing with, effectively, one $600 item being raffled at a time, even if you have a cause you’re directly and exclusively supporting, you still end up behind if you try to make it an NPO. It’s best (in my opinion) to describe SFJ as an organization founded to support charitable causes – effectively, a group that organizes for-charity events (raffles).
As such, yeah, you’re not going to be able to create a SFJ PayPal account. But the thing is, the organizational costs are not themselves a charitable cause – they are a cost incurred to raise money for a charitable cause. That’s why you won’t see this type of organization in guides to setting up 501©(3) – because unless you establish that most of the direct donations to the cause are going directly back out to helping people in very specific, charitable, can-be-verified-by-the-government fashions… well, you don’t get charitable status. The idea of the 501©(3) classification is to protect people and encourage them that the money they’re donating is going to helping people. Not going to help make money to help people; that’s the vital difference.
So what people are saying is right – you need to be able to pay organizational fees out of pocket, or find friends that can help you out. When I organized IGG, I incurred almost $750 in expenses, and quite frankly (up until a week and a half before the event, when the donations counter broke that number), I was terrified that my investment would have better been spent just going directly to Child’s Play.
The problem with asking for money for organizing your event is that you’re asking people to take a risk and bet on you – that you’ll be able to amplify their investment. If someone asks for $100 in donations to travel to an event to evangelize about SFJ… well, is that extra publicity going to, predictably and verifiably, raise an extra $100+ for the target cause? If not, then it shouldn’t be spent. If “maybe”, it still shouldn’t be spent – a donation isn’t something to be gambled with.
So how do you cover costs that you can’t afford yourself? Well, the first thing is to minimize them. The flat, undeniable costs of SFJ, as I see it, are: materials, parts, and the supplies necessary to run the raffle (raffle tickets, basically). All labor should be volunteer, and as such have zero cost. If something needs to be shipped from a volunteer laborer, and they can’t afford to pay for shipping… well, thank them and see if you can find either someone to cover that cost specifically, or another laborer altogether who can do the work and pay the shipping costs. Similarly, if you want to run the raffle at an event, and the organizer can’t afford/doesn’t want to wave the fee for space on the floor, see if you can find a “Sponsor” who will give you a corner in the booth they’re already investing in. If you can’t, then move on and try to find an event where you can pull it off with no cost. Minimize every cost imaginable, and then minimize them more. The manufacture of the stick should be almost the entire budget of the organization. If someone needs money to cover travel to spread awareness… well, too bad. That’s rarely a justifiable expense.
That being said, dealing with the base costs is still an issue. If you want to ask someone to donate to help cover costs, you have to tell them everything about how their money’s being used. Complete transparency with these things is how you build trust. Every cost incurred, enumerate. That’s the other side of a “Thank you to our donors” list, too – if you have a list of people who donated money to make it work, including how much money they donated, then each donor knows that your math adds up – If they can see their name on the donors list, then they can extrapolate that everyone’s donations on the list are accurate; as such, they can total how much has been taken in to cover operational costs, and compare it to the enumerated costs (and any planned costs that you predict and share).
The shirts are a great example of a positive way to raise money for the project, too; as long as you’re clear that the money will be used to organize and pay for the fair costs of SFJ, people can feel like they’re supporting something cool and getting something out of it. Just make sure to share, clearly, how exactly that money will be spent, and maybe even ask people about considerations when building the stick (“Should we put a Flash in it? It will raise the cost by $X, and we’re we have $Y in the pot to buy these other things that are still needed…”). Involving the people who invest in the project is a good way to make sure that people feel like their money isn’t being wasted.
At the end of the project, everything should be paid off and then the raffle money should go straight to the charity. If there’s any money left over from the donations, it should either go straight to building the next stick, or straight to the charity as well.
If you can’t afford to run the project like this… maybe hold off until you can figure out a way to make it work. But taking from the raffle, which people assume is going straight to the charitable cause, is not kosher – even if it is to cover expenses solely incurred in the line of making the raffle happen in the first place.
I hope this didn’t sound too rambly/harsh/condescending, I really want to see you guys succeed (and help if I can). I totally get how frustratingly expensive this type of thing can be, and how hard that can be on finances – I spent that $750 on IGG literally the week before I found out I was being terminated 4 months before my contract was supposed to expire, and I’m still recovering from that hit. Just hoping to share some knowledge I’ve gained through my own experiences, and hopefully give some useful advice. I need to check my finances, then I’m going to try to sign up for a shirt (just gotta make sure that I’ve got enough to pay my electric bills first lol).
Perhaps contact Ultradavid (i.e. a FGC connected lawyer) and see if he has an opinion on how to set this up and/or if he’d be willing to help?
Name: phaedrus
Shirt size: adult medium
American Apparel: Y
One-off color: what d3v said, the mauve.
Number of shirts this type: 2
Tilted or Straight logo vote: tilt
Country of Destination: 'merica
PayPal Address: javier3311@gmail.com
I can’t say much in the terms how to run this, as I’ve never been involved with the front end of a charity before. But, saying that, I’ll help wherever I can, so if you guys have an idea shoot it my way and I’ll see what I can do!
**Name: **RoboKrikit
Shirt size: Adult Medium
American Apparel? Yes
One-off color? Red
Number of shirts this type: 1
Tilted or Straight logo vote: abstain
**Country of Destination: **United States
**Name: **RoboKrikit
Shirt size: Adult Large
American Apparel? Yes
One-off color? Red
Number of shirts this type: 1
Tilted or Straight logo vote: abstain
**Country of Destination: **United States
Thanks for the info.
Flat out, the out of pocket thing is a problem for me. I don’t have an income, aside from odd jobs tutoring math and the occasional mod. That’s why I needed SFJ to support itself. Again, we don’t have the kind of donations to do everything. We do, however, make more from what was donated.
Anyone who inquired about where the raffle money was going was informed completely that 9 dollars of every raffle ticket was going to charity. I even donated more than this to have the $1500 mark.
But I get it. It has to be 100%. But, aside from shirts, and the few donations here and there, I’m going to end up paying a lot out of pocket, which I just can’t do, much as I would like to.
Another grey area is at events, do our shirt sales go to us? Or do they go to charity? We sold them at an event. Had we not, we would have kept it, because people were willingly donating to SFJ in exchange for a shirt. But were they buying them at the event for the charity? Or for SFJ?
Perhaps I could see a donation till at events. One clearly labeled for SFJ, such that “Keep SFJ alive for future projects! Donate directly to us!” Would this be acceptable?
I understand transparency. I just haven’t said anything to anyone about where their money has gone because their money hasn’t gone anywhere, aside from $100 to Duckie, which I had already stated earlier in the thread, and that I had stated I would be paying back personally, it was just the only PayPal money I readily had available, and this happened before his article on SRK. This money that hasn’t gone anywhere includes the money saved from Evo. The other expense, my airfare to Evo, was given directly to me, with all persons involved knowing that this is where the money would be going, and it was spent as such. All other expenses were out of my own pocket.
Anyways, again, I just want to re-iterate my attempts to try and keep SFJ supporting itself. I already paid for a bit out of pocket, I can’t keep doing that. I don’t have a way to.
But, after all of this, I understand. Everything raised from the next raffle will go to charity. In turn, however, we’re going to need a way to get more money into SFJ.