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| Author |
Message |
janc
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Fund Drive Rebate?
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Dec 29 07:34 UTC 1998 |
A while back we had a fund drive to raise money for three things:
- The application fee for 501(c)3 status
- A drive for the future "mail machine"
- Spare parts for Grex's current 4/670 computer
We paid the application fee, but the drive and the spare parts have been
donated to us (though I think we'll be paying shipping costs for the
spare parts so they aren't completely free).
This means that we need to figure out what to do with the leftover
money. The 501(c)3 application was paid for by people who earmarked
their donations specifically for that. But for the rest only a small
amount of money is going to be spent for what it was donated for.
My suggestion is that the people who donated money for the fund drive
should be contacted, and offered the choice of (1) having their money
refunded, (2) applying it toward a Grex membership for themselves and
putting it in the general fund, or (3) adding it to some other fund of
their choice, like the UPS fund or the silly hat fund.
This item is for any discussion of this idea that seems necessary.
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| 21 responses total. |
mary
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response 1 of 21:
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Dec 29 11:43 UTC 1998 |
That's a good plan.
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steve
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response 2 of 21:
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Dec 29 15:30 UTC 1998 |
My only problem with this is that we don't know about the condition
of the 4/670 stuff yet. The motherboard we have doesn't have either
memory or CPU's yet, and the fully functional motherboard hasn't arrived
yet. There is the chance, throuh small, that we're going to find out
that we don't have good working hardware. I don't think this is going
to happen, espically in the case of the second unit which was in a
known working system 'till a little while ago. However, there is still
that chance so before we offer people money I think we should demonstrate
that the hardware works. This shouldn't take too long.
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janc
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response 3 of 21:
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Dec 29 17:56 UTC 1998 |
I agree that we should wait till we've received and evaluated the spare
parts that have been donated.
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other
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response 4 of 21:
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Dec 30 02:57 UTC 1998 |
also possibly retain the donations for other purchases of spare parts.
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janc
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response 5 of 21:
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Dec 31 04:58 UTC 1998 |
The request for money asked for support for a fairly specific set of
components. I don't think we should broaden that without permission
from the donors.
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other
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response 6 of 21:
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Jan 1 00:38 UTC 1999 |
i think a public announcement of the situation and the p[lanned response, with
a waiting period for responses from those donors, is appropriate. i see no
reason to make individual contact. those people donated money to grex because
they wanted grex to be able to offer improved services. if those improvements
cost less than initially estimated, i don't imagine many of those people are
going to mind the excess going into the general fund to sustain grex's ability
to provide those improved services.
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mary
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response 7 of 21:
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Jan 1 14:20 UTC 1999 |
I disagree. Each donor should be sent email explaining the situation
and asked what *the donor* would now like to see happen to his/her
gift. I'd expect most to simply want their money to go to other projects
or the general fund but that should be their choice. Wouldn't it
be nice if we could go into the next targeted fundraiser with
a clear collective conscience? ;-)
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i
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response 8 of 21:
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Jan 1 15:32 UTC 1999 |
The extra $$$ would make a great down-payment on a Grex yacht. (But janc
can't be allowed to go near it if we want to keep it......:)
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aruba
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response 9 of 21:
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Jan 1 17:44 UTC 1999 |
It won't be any trouble to mail individual donors, so I think we should do
that. We can prorate the refund according to how much was donated and how
much we spend on shipping.
But we should wait until we're sure everything we have works, of course.
BTW there is a precedent for refunding earmarked donations that were not used;
we refunded a $100 donation to the UPS fund in early 1996.
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other
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response 10 of 21:
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Jan 1 20:25 UTC 1999 |
I think that the idea goes a little overboard in terms of staff effort for
a small return in goodwill. It's not like giving money to the University of
Michigan earmarked for WUOM and then having them decide to put the money into
the Regents' Travel Expenses fund. Grex is a small operation, and I think
asking people if they want their money back because it didn't get spent on
a specific narrow purpose is more likely to generate requests for returned
money than rolling the money into the general fund is likely to generate
complaints.
There are times when I think it is more appropriate to be simply responsive
rather than proactive. I think this is one. Why ask for opportunities to
give back money that was given Grex. It really seems counterproductive, and
the benefits of the approach seem negligible if extant.
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steve
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response 11 of 21:
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Jan 1 21:17 UTC 1999 |
Sigh. Things are always more complex on the inside than they seem
from the outside.
If mark can create letters reasonably, then we should fire one off
to everyone who donated, and see what they're willing to do.
But, in the future, for the next fundraiser, I'd like to see a little
clause that says something like "In the event that Grex winds up not
needing these dontated monies for this specific purpose, you grant the
Grex board of directors the ability to spend it on something else that
is needed".
That way we'll get around this problem.
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rcurl
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response 12 of 21:
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Jan 1 21:48 UTC 1999 |
It would be better to obtain that as permission when the donation is
made, but not as a requirement for a donation. Records of donations have
to be kept anyway, so it is easy to have them flagged for whether such
permission has been given or not.
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steve
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response 13 of 21:
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Jan 1 23:10 UTC 1999 |
So maybe make the hypothetical statement a check box.
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remmers
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response 14 of 21:
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Jan 2 13:51 UTC 1999 |
Re resp:10 - Regardless whether asking people if they want their
money back will generate lots of requests for returned funds, I
think asking people is the right thing to do.
Rather than making the donation process more complicated for donors,
which a check-box would do, I favor keeping it simple: If funds are
donated earmarked for a particular need, and it turns out later that
the funds aren't needed for that purpose, at *that* point give
people the choice of getting their money back or shifting it into
the general fund. My suspicion is that this wouldn't generate much
in the way of requests for returned funds, and on the plus side it
would generate some good will.
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aruba
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response 15 of 21:
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Jan 2 15:49 UTC 1999 |
I agree with remmers, I suspect most everyone will simply tell us to keep the
money.
Looks like there are 23 donors in question.
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dpc
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response 16 of 21:
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Jan 2 17:58 UTC 1999 |
I also think it's a good idea to ask folks if they would like their
money refunded. Remember--they donated it for a *specific purpose*.
We would be breaching our contract with them if we used it for
*another* purpose without their consent.
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rcurl
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response 17 of 21:
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Jan 2 18:56 UTC 1999 |
It would also be breaching IRS regulations.
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scott
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response 18 of 21:
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Jan 2 19:08 UTC 1999 |
I think it would be innapropriate to not ask.
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krj
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response 19 of 21:
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Jan 2 19:22 UTC 1999 |
(We don't have a donation form to which a check box could be attached.
We have a fundraising item in Agora; people respond with pledges and
then mail in their checks.)
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rcurl
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response 20 of 21:
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Jan 2 19:50 UTC 1999 |
That's another reason for just keeping track of restricted gifts. It
would be good to ask that the gift be *unrestricted* in the appeal, but
just keep track of it if the person doesn't do that.
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rtg
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response 21 of 21:
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Jan 12 05:40 UTC 1999 |
What would we do if our appeal for funds were over-subscribed? Would we
turn the donations away? I doubt it. We asked for donations for spare
parts and equipment expansion. This latest donation of hardware is
really no different than an extra donation of cash. It simply allows us
to expand our list of spare parts, or increase our negotiating power in
purchasing them.
The university covers itself with a bit of language like 'furthering
the goals of the campaign' in its fundraising literature, and does not
turn down excess contributions. I worked for several years on a $20M
capital campaign for the Engineering school. During that time, we
raised over $25M, yet 'failed' the campaign because so many donors
designated specific projects which were outside the scope as defined the
campaign. It was tough explaining to the alumni who had checked the
generic 'goals' box, how we raised so much money, yet weren't breaking
ground on the new buildings we promised!
In the present case, I believe the money should be invested until such
time as it is needed for spares. That would be when the current spares
get put into service, or it is determined that the donated used parts
are unserviceable.
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