Fundraising from the community

Have you considered Patreon? It's the crowd version of the old "art patron" system.

For example, I've agreed to pay "Creator" Kati Sipp of Hack the Union $2 for every original piece that she publishes on her blog, and another person $3 per visualization she creates.

https://www.patreon.com/home

Donations don't have to be in the form of a Kickstarter/Indiegogo-like campaign, which take massive fees.

Public Good, a local company, charges the minimum credit card fees (about 3% per transaction), does NOT charge overhead, and gives donors the opportunity to pay for the credit card fees themselves.

We already have swag so "rewards" can be done by getting picked up at an event.

+1 on this idea. Important to make clear that donating or not donating does not affect anyone's status or ability to do anything at Chi Hack Night (which I know is your intention, obviously, but it's always good to spell it out so no one is in doubt). I think a custom-per-donor recurring donation level makes most sense, rather than a one-time goal-directed campaign (Public Good might better support the former; Kickstarter and some other sites are more oriented toward the latter).

Maybe add "Sign Language Interpreter" to the list of regular things, like food and video recording, that funds go toward.

Yes, I think we should earmark the money raised from attendees for certain things. Taxing with representation, in a sense. In fact, I think we should talk about why we are doing the activities and services we are talking about funding. What goals for the community do they trace back to? Are there any other things we might do to support those things, and what do those new ideas potentially cost? And then validate our proposed list of expenditures wtih the larger group. In other words, if we're fundraising from the community, I think it warrants a budget discussion with them.

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I agree with the proposal and all comments. Good thinking thorugh this, Derek. I do especially like the idea that we ask folks to pitch in. If they are working, they can afford a little something, perhaps even a recurring payment.

Yes it's wise to avoid kickstarter, etc. IOBY (in our back yard) is a service that ICA has used. I believe that they do not charge beyond credit card processing fees, and they allow donors to contribute a gratuity to cover these. However, they only accept deadline-driven campaigns, and I think that we want to set up a permanent donor option.

I also agree with the notion that we earmark participant contributions for some special purpose, but would caution that we reserve the right as a body to determine where those would go. In other words, the default for contributions would be a general fund as opposed to restricting those contributions to a specific purpose. We could allow larger personal donations to be restricted, if we wanted.

Cheers,

Steve Ediger

773-920-7350 (google voice)

505-426-7088 (mobile)