Monthly Donations
MONTHLY DONATIONS
There was an interesting post by Robert Hoddy in the “Let’s Have a Chat” discussion yesterday.
Here’s what he said
“I just signed up to make a regular donation to KAS. It isn't much as I'm on benefits - just 5 dollars a month (which is £3.38 in the UK), but just imagine if we all did that, how much it would be!!
Also I know it is helpful to charities when people make a monthly committment because it allows them to make forward plans, knowing that the money will come in for sure.
Rob :-)”
His comments on doing this through Paypal are as follows
“Well the Paypal system is very efficient and great for anybody used to paying online, but anything like that scares me to death because I am a technophobe (I mean really, my mobile phone is so old it doesn't even take photos!) so I want extra brownie-points for doing something scary!!
I was expecting just to make a payment with my son's credit card (I don't have one) and the monthly money will indeed come off that card, but nevertheless I still had to set up a Paypal account for it to happen through. Then of course once the Paypal account was set up and the payment had gone through, then they were offering me the opportunity to link the account to my bank and I had to take care not to push that button because I don't want to do that. Maybe other people will like that though.
My understanding is that you can use a Paypal account like a bank account for money to go in and out of, but if you don't put any money into it then they will just take the monthly donations from the credit card number you gave them. I've had an email to say that the first donation has been made OK and to tell me the date when the next one will be paid. Phew!”
As I thought about what Rob said, and our previous discussion in this thread about once or twice yearly appeals where we encourage people to donate for the SA day-to-day operations, it seemed like a $5/mo commitment might be easy enough for most people to handle and it would put even more $ into the coffers.
I am throwing this out here, wondering what the rest of you think.
I have emailed Sandy (hated to since she’s on vacation, but I know she will be wading into KAS stuff after a bit of a holiday, and thought she might run this by Ronda while they are together.
What I said was
“Just wanted to mention that dear Robert Hoddy has posted yesterday under Cafe KAS and in the UK group that he has made a $5/mo commitment to KAS through Paypal. wonderful - because I know he is on a VERY limited budget. Angela Garlant chimed in that she has done the same.
It just occurs to me that with 800+ people on the forum... if everyone did that... or even half of them... what a difference it would make to KAS and what a very little difference it would make to the donor. We can all afford $5/mo.
We are scurrying around looking for fundraising ideas.. and we need to continue that..... but $5/mo commitment is nothing.
Wonder if while you are there, you could spend some time prioritizing needs in SA and when you get back blog something about it.
My thought is this - a specific goal is easier to achieve than a loosy-goosy one... so if a $5/mo donation from 100 people would let us accomplish "XXXXXXXX" in South Africa, that is goal # 1, if 100 more people donate $5/mo we can do "YYYYYYY" and that is goal # 2, and so forth.
Maybe we can make it a challenge down the road... perhaps we can even get people to enlist friends/family to make the same pledge.... in other words - do part of the fundraising in "tiny bits".... but we need to have those specific goals to give us something to shoot for... just like 300 hats = 300 warm heads. It might work better than asking for larger donations twice a year.”
So - my question to this group - what do you folks in the group feel about launching a “Five Dollar per month Challenge” at some point if Sandy OK’s it? Do you think it would work?? Having regular contributions coming in would make things simpler in SA.
Tallies in challenges have the effect of getting people “on board” What do you think of having people sign on to the tally when they have made a pledge? Is this too personal?? We have no hesitation in reporting the number of items we have made for a specific challenge... but I am not sure about the pledge thing.
If Sandy could come up with a priority list and a dollar figure for each item, we would have a yardstick to know if we have accomplished goal #1 goal #2 etc. I think goals in $500 increments would be a good thing
We would have to set it up so people could just add their names to a list when they sign up for a monthly donation so the Mods don’t go crazy trying to pull the names out of the discussion... but than can be done.
We all need to keep going with our “big ideas” for fundraising - they are really important... but maybe a “little idea” would get the ball rolling and get some badly needed funds to SA in a hurry.
Not sure what Sandy will think of this idea - if I hear back, I will post her response here... or maybe she will respond in this discussion.
Meanwhile - what do you in this group think???
There was an interesting post by Robert Hoddy in the “Let’s Have a Chat” discussion yesterday.
Here’s what he said
“I just signed up to make a regular donation to KAS. It isn't much as I'm on benefits - just 5 dollars a month (which is £3.38 in the UK), but just imagine if we all did that, how much it would be!!
Also I know it is helpful to charities when people make a monthly committment because it allows them to make forward plans, knowing that the money will come in for sure.
Rob :-)”
His comments on doing this through Paypal are as follows
“Well the Paypal system is very efficient and great for anybody used to paying online, but anything like that scares me to death because I am a technophobe (I mean really, my mobile phone is so old it doesn't even take photos!) so I want extra brownie-points for doing something scary!!
I was expecting just to make a payment with my son's credit card (I don't have one) and the monthly money will indeed come off that card, but nevertheless I still had to set up a Paypal account for it to happen through. Then of course once the Paypal account was set up and the payment had gone through, then they were offering me the opportunity to link the account to my bank and I had to take care not to push that button because I don't want to do that. Maybe other people will like that though.
My understanding is that you can use a Paypal account like a bank account for money to go in and out of, but if you don't put any money into it then they will just take the monthly donations from the credit card number you gave them. I've had an email to say that the first donation has been made OK and to tell me the date when the next one will be paid. Phew!”
As I thought about what Rob said, and our previous discussion in this thread about once or twice yearly appeals where we encourage people to donate for the SA day-to-day operations, it seemed like a $5/mo commitment might be easy enough for most people to handle and it would put even more $ into the coffers.
I am throwing this out here, wondering what the rest of you think.
I have emailed Sandy (hated to since she’s on vacation, but I know she will be wading into KAS stuff after a bit of a holiday, and thought she might run this by Ronda while they are together.
What I said was
“Just wanted to mention that dear Robert Hoddy has posted yesterday under Cafe KAS and in the UK group that he has made a $5/mo commitment to KAS through Paypal. wonderful - because I know he is on a VERY limited budget. Angela Garlant chimed in that she has done the same.
It just occurs to me that with 800+ people on the forum... if everyone did that... or even half of them... what a difference it would make to KAS and what a very little difference it would make to the donor. We can all afford $5/mo.
We are scurrying around looking for fundraising ideas.. and we need to continue that..... but $5/mo commitment is nothing.
Wonder if while you are there, you could spend some time prioritizing needs in SA and when you get back blog something about it.
My thought is this - a specific goal is easier to achieve than a loosy-goosy one... so if a $5/mo donation from 100 people would let us accomplish "XXXXXXXX" in South Africa, that is goal # 1, if 100 more people donate $5/mo we can do "YYYYYYY" and that is goal # 2, and so forth.
Maybe we can make it a challenge down the road... perhaps we can even get people to enlist friends/family to make the same pledge.... in other words - do part of the fundraising in "tiny bits".... but we need to have those specific goals to give us something to shoot for... just like 300 hats = 300 warm heads. It might work better than asking for larger donations twice a year.”
So - my question to this group - what do you folks in the group feel about launching a “Five Dollar per month Challenge” at some point if Sandy OK’s it? Do you think it would work?? Having regular contributions coming in would make things simpler in SA.
Tallies in challenges have the effect of getting people “on board” What do you think of having people sign on to the tally when they have made a pledge? Is this too personal?? We have no hesitation in reporting the number of items we have made for a specific challenge... but I am not sure about the pledge thing.
If Sandy could come up with a priority list and a dollar figure for each item, we would have a yardstick to know if we have accomplished goal #1 goal #2 etc. I think goals in $500 increments would be a good thing
We would have to set it up so people could just add their names to a list when they sign up for a monthly donation so the Mods don’t go crazy trying to pull the names out of the discussion... but than can be done.
We all need to keep going with our “big ideas” for fundraising - they are really important... but maybe a “little idea” would get the ball rolling and get some badly needed funds to SA in a hurry.
Not sure what Sandy will think of this idea - if I hear back, I will post her response here... or maybe she will respond in this discussion.
Meanwhile - what do you in this group think???
Views: 12
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Enid Mary Shaw on
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Anne, it is a great idea, in theory, but not workable for me.
When I have spare cash, I'll gladly donate; tho' not able to commit to a regular donation
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Permalink Reply by Sylvia Vannelli on -
Anne, I've been thinking along similar lines since I read Robert's original post, and I think it is a splendid idea. I absolutely agree with you that having goals to shoot for makes it something to can grab hold of.
I'm not certain about the pledges part. There are already various levels of commitment. Some are getting donations of yarn and postage money but others are buying yarn and/or paying postage. We don't, on the whole, know how much Kas is costing individuals at the moment. And nor, I think, should we ask unless it's to be able to offer suggestions to people for how to get help with their costs. And of course people's ability to contribute financially must vary enormously. Sometimes even $5 a month can be too much. There are people in the UK who have to choose between food and heat in the winter and if there are any Kasers in that situation I wouldn't want to put them under any pressure. I think a lot of less well off people really want to contribute but can't, and I wouldn't want them to feel any worse than they already do about not being able to give.
How about if we aimed for 1000 donations from members and from as many other people as they can recruit to the cause as possible. That way members can put their name on a list telling us about donations but we wouldn't know whether they had made a donation personally or had recruited someone else to make it. From the list we could see what the minimum donations added up to, some people may make a bigger donation, and we'd see how near we were to hitting our target at particular stages.
we could ask those recruiting people to pledge to let those they had recruited know, perhaps on a monthly basis, how far we were along in reaching our target. That would keep those people involved( or some of them) and they may be become long term supporters.
In the UK we often have groups of people who call themselves Friends of ......... This is often a hospital or a hospice or a nursing home or school; sometimes a theatre or other arts project. One of the main objective of such organisations is fund raising. sometimes a set amount is given, sometimes it's steady fund raising over the years. They are often publicly acknowledged for their contributions.
Could we have a Friends of KAS International, in the real world. We could try to recruit some known names, for small amounts. Just a few people would help to raise the profile. We'd be asking those people more for the use of their name for building a group than for their money.
It's great that Robert decided to donate and encourage others to do so at this time, when fund raising, in all its forms, is so much on our minds and is so critical.
Sylvia -
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Permalink Reply by Anne Powell on -
Sylvia, I agree that $5/mo might be too much for many of our contributors. I have seniors knitting for me - quite gleefully - they love doing this. My last pick-up from one pair was in excess of 300 squares... but they make no bones about the fact that they cannot afford to buy yarn... so I keep them supplied with yarn donated to me, and sometimes one of their friends will slip them $20 to buy more.
We certainly don’t want anyone to feel bad or under pressure if they can’t contribute $$... because every contribution, even if it’s only one square makes a difference. But there are others who CAN afford a small sum a month, and the idea of kind of laying out the challenge to do so may just jog them into doing it. Personally, I would rather commit to a small sum each month than to feel I should scrape up the $$ for a couple of appeals per year.
It’s a very sensitive topic, I know. I suspect that most of our KASers can’t afford to do what they are already doing. Maybe it’s that understanding of what it is like to do without, that makes them want to share what they do have. I certainly am not in a position to mail everything I can produce, and with what is coming in from other donors who can’t afford to mail them, there is no way I could send what I do without the support of my church. Not everyone belongs to or wants to approach a church... but you are right - we need to, as part of this group discussion, find ways to help people with finding ways to covering their costs, and there are no doubt other sources than churches for help.
I really like your idea of Friends of KAS International!! Hopefully we can explore that idea within this group. It would be a neat way to approach local organizations for donations.. in all of our countries. and to get some known and not-so-known names or businesses to donate And if Sandy could design an introductory “would you be a friend to KAS” letter and a certificate that would acknowledge donors as ‘friends’ that would be super-cool I think the secret might be to keep the asked-for donation low - say $25-50....(maybe even less??) and if there were larger donations... they could be called Supporters, Patrons etc on a graduated scale... And we could make it an annual list so we could go back and ask again the following year... Maybe we could publish a “Friends of” list on the KASCare site and in the forum. I can see it now - “Ladies Bridge Club of Punkeydoodle Corners”, “Students of Larkspur Public School”, Joe the Greengrocer” and on and on.
I haven’t spent any time figuring out the “Pledge to Tell” thing - not sure if it’s even up and running... but that might be another way to get the word out that we need funds..... Don’t knit?? Can you donate a small sum?? Help me be a “Friend of KAS”??? ...... kind of idea.
Maybe the idea of names on a tally is a bad one... we sure don’t want to embarrass anyone. Wonder if we did offer monthly donations as a little challenge, if Sandy could report back how the fund is growing..... so if we got 100 people committing to a set amount each month, she could just report the number of donors and the total monthly amount. Don’t want this to create extra work for her.. But she is the only one who would have access to the Paypal information.
Most importantly, I think we need the goals..... broken down into tangible bite sized pieces so we can say to folk..... We have covered the cost of a one-day-a-week employee, now we need to cover the cost of transportation to get these blankets out into the camps.. or whatever.
In any case, I hope we will see some lively discussion about this... and then when the brainstorming is over, we can put our ideas to Sandy to see what she thinks. -
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Permalink Reply by Robert Hoddy on
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I joined this group at Anne's suggestion, and I'm glad to see that my action has generated so much enthusiasm and brainstorming. However, I'm a simple soul and unlikely to come up with anything in the way of more sophisticated fund-raising so perhaps I shouldn't be here!
I understand about the "heat-or-eat" situation in winter for some in the UK. That's why my son and I decided to seriously down-size our home to a small flat so that we could afford to heat and eat! We both have M.E. so we are home all day and not very active, similar to many elderly people.
Despite all that, I still think that $5 per month is affordable for most people. It would cost me more than that to get a bus to the town centre and back, so at most it just means me cutting back on one bus trip a month. There will undoubtedly be some who don't want to make a regular commitment, and that's fine, but I really think that promoting a simple $5 per month contribution would be worthwhile.
You are all mostly better at putting across ideas in a diplomatic way than I am, so don't take me wrong here, but I wouldn't worry too much about some people feeling bad if they can't make a financial contribution. These people are still making a huge contribution with their unpaid work and KAS can make sure they feel valued for that. Whenever one is trying to do something big in the world it is never possible to please everybody, and if one lets that get in the way then it really limits what can be achieved. I would suggest keeping the idea of a small monthly donation in the forefront of people's minds, and maybe even show a running percentage of members who are doing this, but I don't think individual contributors should be listed.
Rob :-) -
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Permalink Reply by Anne Powell on
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Welcome aboard, Rob and thanks for your comments. I think you are right - about not naming individual contributors.. but the showing of a running percentage or even the actual # of monthly contributors and the total amount per month would be a good incentive for others to perhaps jump on board and make a monthly commitment if they are able.
Do keep chiming in - the more voices we hear fom the better!! -
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Permalink Reply by Kathy Brown on -
I have charitable contributions taken from my paycheck at work. At the end of the year, they ask me which organizations to send the money (and their matching funds) to. Does KAS have a non-profit organization tax ID for the USA? That would be the requirement to get my annual donation sent to KAS. Thank you.
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Permalink Reply by Anne Powell on
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Hi Kathy
At this point in time, KAS is a registered charity only in Australia, so it is unlikely that it will work. I believe the only way we can donate is directly to KAS in Australia. What a shame, those 'matching funds' would be a bonus!! -
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Permalink Reply by kyla on -
this is interesting - there are very likely other workplaces that do the same thing, possibly in australia, that would be willing to give to KAS if they knew about it. I'll give Sandy a heads-up.
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Permalink Reply by Adelina F on -
I was also thinking along the lines of how to donate so that there is no tax or other fees which would take away from the intended donation. While I do appreciate the security and accesibility of PayPal, it does take a comission does it not?
Can KAS not apply for permission to be listed as a charitable organization in the UK and other places?
As for how to go about asking for donations... I think just making people aware through the ezine of the projects they are attempting and need funding for, would be incentive enough without being pushy. With a link for those who want to donate to go to and also a total of the amount received and how far away this is from the goal (like the top bar of wikipedia some years ago).
I agree with Rob about not listing those who donate and not worrying too much about asking for donations from those who can't afford to, as I am sure everyone here knows of many worthy charities yet we don't donate our time and money to all of them because it's simply not possible. I don't mean to sound callous, but it's just one of those choices that we make every day, so compared to tv adverts and volunteers trying to talk you into sponsoring a charity on the street (I'm not saying these are bad methods) this is far less intrusive a way of asking for help. -
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Permalink Reply by Sylvia Vannelli on
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Hello Adelina, welcome to the forum. You'll be interested to hear that I have, only today, emailed Sandy with more details of what would be required by the UK charity commissioners to register a UK version of Kas. Kascare which is incorported in Australia and SA cannot be registered as a charity here under basic charity commission rules. There are ways to do it but they are costly and time consuming. i.e they require two of the resources which are in short supply within Kas at the moment. As I understand it this cannot be a priority at the moment.
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Permalink Reply by Lynn on -
I like using paypal for my $5 monthly donation because I have it set up to come out of my bank account . I understand for a lot of people it is hard to commit and a bit scary to think they are taking money out of your account, what if i forget kind of thing, but I am grateful to be in the situation financially that i can do that.
I don't like people knocking on my door asking for donations, I feel that it is up to me to decide where I donate and when. I don't like the phone calls soliciting either.
I wonder if there is a way to add a donate button to our blogs, websites etc? You never know who will decide to donate.
I really want to have one on the page I made for the KAS project HERE because I think after people read in brief what KAS is all about they may leave a donation. I must ask around if I can do that or not. Will do that today :)
Just wanted to put my two cents in.
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