We have been using Scalefunder also and it has worked out great. Some of the pages we have are for our athletics and if they give at a certain level they are able to get tickets to games and some other stuff. The Scalefunder page allows me to see if they have declined the benefits so I know if I have to take out FMV on their gift. It also runs through the same credit card process we use for our other on line gifts so we get the money all at once.
Thank you,
Cynthia Hornbeck
[cid:
image001.png@01D4BEFA.83E06650]
University Advancement
940-898-3894
CHornbeck1@twu.edu<mailto:
CHornbeck1@twu.edu>
[https://www.blackbaud.com/files/training/jobaids/CSOD/Badges/certification_b/PRO_Orange.png]
From: Advancement Services Discussion List [mailto:
FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG] On Behalf Of Ryan Malecha
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2019 3:12 PM
To:
FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG
Subject: Re: [FUNDSVCS] GoFundMe
Lisa,
I can't speak to whether the gift made to the Lacrosse team is tax deductible, but I can share our experience of recording and receipting crowdfunding gifts.
Several years ago a donor approached us about doing a crowdfunding campaign though Go Fund Me. We decided to test the concept to see what the response would be to crowdfunding . We went ahead and set up a nonprofit Go Fund Me page, so the gifts were earmarked for our university. However, it was still messy trying to process the gifts for several reasons:
1. The funds are only transferred to our university once or twice a month, not in real time.
2. The funds technically came from Go Fund Me, not the individual donors, so there was hard and soft crediting involved
3. Go Fund Me takes out a portion of each gift for processing fees. You'll have to decided if you want to calculate and soft credit each donor for the full amount of their donation, or the donation amount minus the fees.
4. Since Go Fund Me used Stripe as their payment processor, it was a manual process getting all the donor info into our Raisers Edge database.
All in all it was a good learning experience, but it was not a viable solution to future crowdfunding projects.
We ended up partnering with Scalefunder, which provides a crowdfunding platform to nonprofits. Using this platform alleviated the issues listed above and allowed us to use the same payment system we had been using for our online gifts processing.
On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 9:03 AM Lisa Sabia <
lsabia@fairfield.edu<mailto:
lsabia@fairfield.edu>> wrote:
Good Morning.
Has anyone had any experience with processing gifts made through the GoFundMe platform. The University's Lacrosse Team had a GoFundMe set up to raise funds for the team. The person who set up the campaign had the proceeds sent to him and he then sent a bank check to the University for deposit to benefit the lacrosse team. Given the ease of use, I can only see that this is going to become more commonplace.
How has anyone processed this type of gift - if a gift at all? Should a hard credit for the gift go to the organizer then soft credit to those who made the contributions?
Any help is appreciated on this topic.
Thanks in Advance
--
Ryan Malecha
Freed-Hardeman University
Associate Vice-President for Community Engagement
731-989-6022