play nice with charities

[chadwhitacre]

This is related to project tips (#27) but deserves its own thread. Say a charity like @saxifrage or @Watsi or @python wants to accept funds via Gittip Gratipay. They have charity status so they can offer a tax advantage to donors. Can Gittip Gratipay support this somehow? A related idea is to make Gittip Gratipay itself a charity (#101).

Want to back this issue? Post a bounty on it! We accept bounties via Bountysource.

[chadwhitacre]

+1 from @lindsayp.

[chadwhitacre]

+1 from Chris Holt of Youthspace.ca in private email. My response:

Chris,

Thanks for getting in touch! I'd love to see non-profits using Gittip to raise funds, that's definitely part of the long-term vision. That said, you're one of the first to ask about it, so you're ahead of the curve! If you go here you can sign Youthspace.ca up for a Gittip account:

https://www.gittip.com/on/twitter/youthspace_ca/

Once signed up you will be able to receive funds through the system. That said, we haven't really fully addressed how funding on Gittip interfaces with charitable giving reporting requirements in various jurisdictions. If this is something you wanted to look into I'd love to report the results here on this ticket where we're tracking the issue:

#249

Thanks! :D

chad

[chadwhitacre]

+1 from @tpdubs2 via support@gittip.com.

[chadwhitacre]

+1 from @seanlinsley in IRC.

[seanlinsley]

The Ada Initiative joined Gittip today, but this is their profile text:

We are making the world better by supporting women in open technology and culture through fighting harassment, running the AdaCamp conferences, and teaching Allies Workshops. We don't use Gittip, so please donate here: http://supportada.org

Why are they pointing users away from Gittip? It'd be nice to ask them directly.

[seanlinsley]

I just pinged them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/seanlinsley/status/422939656313765888

[seanlinsley]

And they responded: https://twitter.com/adainitiative/status/423153439242084356

@seanlinsley each method of payment we support requires N hours per week to administer, so we focus on just a few. No Bitcoin either :)

[chadwhitacre]

+1 from @zspencer on Twitter.

[chadwhitacre]

+1 from @saandstorm on Twitter.

[seanlinsley]

Unsurprisingly, the Ada Initiative has been getting tips even though their profile says not to use Gittip.

[chadwhitacre]

+1 from @timothyfcook in #2700:

Gratipay could become a household name if it became THE place that people went when they wanted to support someone/something on an ongoing basis:

• want to support Betsy? Gratipay.
• want to support an open-source project team? Gratipay.
• want to support an indie journalist? Gratipay.
• want to support the Red Cross? Gratipay.
• want to support your local NPR radio station? Gratipay.
• want to support your alma mater? Gratipay.

If I could do all my giving to a diverse mix of individuals, teams, and organizations all in ONE place... it would be a dream. Most people create their budgets on a monthly basis, but charitable giving is tricky to setup that way for all of the things I want to support. If I have $100/month set aside for giving, with Gratipay I could pick out my 10 favorite things and support them each with $2.50/week.

To get there we need to offer a few more tools that non-profits would want to track their donors.

Specifically, we need:

• a way for organizations to provide receipts to their supporters (this could be automatic via e-mail on a monthly basis and could let donors remain anonymous).
• a way to ask for supporter's permission to provide contact info/names to the organization
• probably an API integration to allow the organization to migrate giving/contact info into Salesforce/Mailchimp, etc. or at least export to .csv

Once the functionality is available, we'd need to do a serious push to build a network of local non-profits who will ask their donors to contribute via Gratipay. I think we could solicit 20+ important Pittsburgh non-profits and build from there. Once we've taken over one City with Gratipay by storm, more will follow.

I think non-profits are looking for a tool like this that doesn't cost them too much extra.

Right now the trendiest tool in this realm is: http://donate.ly/ They are skimming 2% plus .50/donor in addition to the 2.9%+.30 merchant fees. Gratipay could easily provide some of these same services for a lot less and use it to grow it's user base.

[webmaven]

👍

[chadwhitacre]

From Neal Gorenflo at Shareable:

On donations, we're fiscally sponsored by Tides Center and we can only accept donations through approved channels (like NetworkforGood). Unfortunately, we can't take donations through Gratipay. We may seek independent 501c3 status in 2015, and it will likely work if / when we get that status.

But see also Twitter. 💃 For context: I've been emailing with Neal a little bit and made a small (personal) donation to Shareable using NetworkforGood after his above response.

[timothyfcook]

Still want this. "Give to the people, teams, and projects building the world you want."

[mattbk]

Specifically, we need:

• a way for organizations to provide receipts to their supporters (this could be automatic via e-mail on a monthly basis and could let donors remain anonymous).

Doesn't sound hard? Part of #1199.

• a way to ask for supporter's permission to provide contact info/names to the organization

Falls under #236? Could be done in aggregate in order to maintain anonymity (only if n >10, for example).

• probably an API integration to allow the organization to migrate giving/contact info into Salesforce/Mailchimp, etc. or at least export to .csv

Sounds like this could be packed into the point above.

Is there any legal difficulty in collecting payments on behalf of a charity and maintaining tax-deductible status? I feel like this just came up somewhere.

[chadwhitacre]

Closing in light of our decision to shut down Gratipay.

Thank you all for a great run, and I'm sorry it didn't work out! 😞 💃

[hashar]

@whit537 I am very sorry it did not work out. But there is one sure thing: at least you tried to push your idea as far as you could. Courage is sometime accepting the evidences. I have been lurking at your initiative since the start probably, and I am quite impressed it went that far.

I have no doubt your next adventure will be a great one 🥇