DiscussMormonism.com Collection Cup

[Dr. Shades]

Do you have the anonymous method set back up? Or did I miss something?

Not yet. I'm going to keep trying, though.

I have kept trying, and although I figured out a way to donate using a credit card instead of PayPal, I wasn't able to make donors anonymous. . . much as I wanted to. So we're more or less back at square one. . . unless you take me at my word that I would never use your name, email address, and street address to stalk you, harass you, or spam you.

Two more generous individuals have donated $280.00 between them, so the remainder of our goal is:

$364.07

I appreciate you both so much! Heartfelt thanks incoming!

Make the goal $2000. There's nothing wrong with you making a little bit of money off hosting a discussion board!

Maybe not, but I'd like to preserve my integrity among potential donors.

Say something like, The annual cost of keeping the board online is around $800. I'm setting the fundraising goal at $2000. Anything above $800 will compensate me for the time I spend maintaining and moderating the board.

Asking for more money than we actually need feels, . . . perverse.

[Some Schmo]

Asking for more money than we actually need feels, . . . perverse.

You'll never be billionaire with that attitude. Taking advantage of others and pretending you earned it is the billionaire way.

[Marcus]

Not yet. I'm going to keep trying, though.

I have kept trying, and although I figured out a way to donate using a credit card instead of PayPal, I wasn't able to make donors anonymous. . . much as I wanted to. So we're more or less back at square one. . . unless you take me at my word that I would never use your name, email address, and street address to stalk you, harass you, or spam you...

Those aren't the only reasons people seek anonymity, but I appreciate your word that you would avoid those spcific activities.

[canpakes]

Say something like, The annual cost of keeping the board online is around $800. I'm setting the fundraising goal at $2000. Anything above $800 will compensate me for the time I spend maintaining and moderating the board.

Asking for more money than we actually need feels, . . . perverse.

I don’t see an issue with holding funds that will be applied to future hosting payments. It doesn’t have to be that spare funds are immediately spent by the proprietor as ‘personal compensation’ as suggested upstream.

Maintaining a separate bank account for that would be the easiest and most ethical way to do this, but doing so might generate its own additional cost, depending on your bank. Mine allows at least one other account without a monthly fee.

[Dr. Shades]

Asking for more money than we actually need feels, . . . perverse.

You'll never be billionaire with that attitude. Taking advantage of others and pretending you earned it is the billionaire way.

I wholeheartedly agree. That's why I'll never be a billionaire. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

Asking for more money than we actually need feels, . . . perverse.

I don’t see an issue with holding funds that will be applied to future hosting payments. It doesn’t have to be that spare funds are immediately spent by the proprietor as ‘personal compensation’ as suggested upstream.

Right, but I think the current way is slightly more ethical.

Maintaining a separate bank account for that would be the easiest and most ethical way to do this, but doing so might generate its own additional cost, depending on your bank. Mine allows at least one other account without a monthly fee.

Opening an entirely new account just to hold funds for future costs sounds like a supreme pain in the ass. It's just easier and a bit more transparent to only ask for what we need, when we need it, and refund any excess and let the donor decide what to do with it the following year.

[Marcus]

Opening an entirely new account just to hold funds for future costs sounds like a supreme pain in the ass....

What it sounds like is an escrow account. Using escrow accounts to hold money for a specific situation is considered far more transparent than putting public donations into a personal account.

It's just easier and a bit more transparent to only ask for what we need, when we need it, and refund any excess and let the donor decide what to do with it the following year.

It's pretty easy and far more transparent to do that with an escrow account. But its certainly your right to not do that with something you control.

...but I think the current way is slightly more ethical...

Escrow accounts are set up in order to handle money in an ethical manner. I know we have a unique situation here, but using personal accounts to hold public monies is universally not considered "more ethical" than using escrow accounts. Just to give you a different viewpoint, Shades. It's like being asked by someone you really don't know to "trust me, I won't harass or spam or doxx you so please give me all your personal information when you donate." Is it really wise to do that? If you grew up indoctrinated in the lds church you might think so, but as a general rule you wouldn't.

[Dr. Shades]

Opening an entirely new account just to hold funds for future costs sounds like a supreme pain in the ass....

What it sounds like is an escrow account. Using escrow accounts to hold money for a specific situation is considered far more transparent than putting public donations into a personal account.

I see.

...but I think the current way is slightly more ethical...

Escrow accounts are set up in order to handle money in an ethical manner. I know we have a unique situation here, but using personal accounts to hold public monies is universally not considered "more ethical" than using escrow accounts. Just to give you a different viewpoint, Shades. It's like being asked by someone you really don't know to "trust me, I won't harass or spam or doxx you so please give me all your personal information when you donate." Is it really wise to do that? If you grew up indoctrinated in the lds church you might think so, but as a general rule you wouldn't.

You have convinced me. Sadly, if I set up an escrow account, as the controller I'd get all the same information from donors that I do now. So I'd have to go back to a PayPal account, but then I'd still be able to see the donors' email addresses and they wouldn't be able to donate if they didn't have a PayPal account themselves.

If I had known donors would be LESS anonymous than donating through PayPal, I most definitely wouldn't have opened this account. You all have my apologies; it wasn't until I/we tested it that we learned about the lack of anonymity.

In happier news, two more kind donors have contributed. I won't be able to learn the grand total for another 36 hours minimum, but when I do I'll update our goal. Thanks very much to the two of you!!

[Marcus]

What it sounds like is an escrow account. Using escrow accounts to hold money for a specific situation is considered far more transparent than putting public donations into a personal account.

I see.

Escrow accounts are set up in order to handle money in an ethical manner. I know we have a unique situation here, but using personal accounts to hold public monies is universally not considered "more ethical" than using escrow accounts. Just to give you a different viewpoint, Shades. It's like being asked by someone you really don't know to "trust me, I won't harass or spam or doxx you so please give me all your personal information when you donate." Is it really wise to do that? If you grew up indoctrinated in the lds church you might think so, but as a general rule you wouldn't.

You have convinced me. Sadly, if I set up an escrow account, as the controller I'd get all the same information from donors that I do now. So I'd have to go back to a PayPal account, but then I'd still be able to see the donors' email addresses and they wouldn't be able to donate if they didn't have a PayPal account themselves.

If I had known donors would be LESS anonymous than donating through PayPal, I most definitely wouldn't have opened this account. You all have my apologies; it wasn't until I/we tested it that we learned about the lack of anonymity...

You had to open an escrow account to learn that putting money into it from donors you already know doesn't make the known information magically disappear from your knowledge? We may have a bigger problem here than your misunderstanding of ethics!!

[Gadianton]

Concerning "anonymous" donations, I don't think it's going to happen. Granted, I have zero experience with either ecommerce or non-profits or starting a business of any kind, as Hound correctly observes. If somebody knows a way to do it, feel free to message Shades directly or myself, or bring it up here to discuss. My initial research seemed to indicate this was possible, and I pushed Shades in a certain direction fully believing that this would be achieved. When it wasn't, I went back to research it and my research suddenly indicated it was a hard "no". I thought this had been achieved last year, with Gofundme, and the only person who could say for sure, says that donations were anonymous going that route. However, this is what gofundme says:

support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us/articles/203687114-Donating-as-Anonymous-on-the-fundraiser-page

July 17, 2026 Updated
When donating on GoFundMe, you can make it so your name won’t be visible to the public on the fundraiser page. For security reasons, you can’t make an entirely anonymous donation, and the organizer, co-organizers, beneficiary, and others will be able to see your name and, sometimes, email address.

So according to gofundme, it's NOT possible to set up for anonymous donations. It could be this is new, see the date, or was always the case the the person who would know best wasn't looking at the right view and didn't realize they could access PII. My initial misunderstanding may also have come from the possibility some platforms have of limiting PII through coding, but not fundamentally.

The reason a simple thing is so difficult to achieve is all about fraud and money laundering, apparently. So the most official link Shades is going to have for now is here:

https://buy.stripe.com/7sYfZj2QPfvna6cchIcjS01

I did a test donation and he says he got it no problems. If you want to be extra cautious, wait to donate until Friday as Shades has a couple days here without access to one of his authentication factors and so he's not watching it. This could lead to overshooting.

[canpakes]

You'll never be billionaire with that attitude. Taking advantage of others and pretending you earned it is the billionaire way.

I wholeheartedly agree. That's why I'll never be a billionaire. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

No problem. When you’re a billionaire, you can just pay someone to sleep for you.