We now have two new and promising tools that should help make it easier and more reliable for future fundraising and charitable giving.
reddit.Crowdtilt.com - You may have already seen this one in action for the /r/breakingbad fundraiser or others. Crowdtilt has set up a special version of their site based on redditor needs. Some of the main benefits of their tool:
- Worldwide. People can contribute from all over the world.
- Good for nonprofits: Crowdtilt provides tax-deductible receipts to donors and disburses funds to verified 501(c)(3) non-profits directly.
- Safe. Anybody with a U.S. bank account can receive money (more countries coming soon), and Crowdtilt will help verify beneficiaries of campaigns. Beneficiary can not be changed/hidden. Any fundraiser with "verified 501(c)(3)" status means that the recipient of funds matches IRS info for the same non-profit.
- Low fee. Crowdtilt is waiving their fee for this collaboration, so only a 2.5% fee for secure credit card processing applies (less than PayPal and other sites).
- Can also work for various groups or other campaigns that are not official non-profits to collect funds for meetups etc.
- Event driven with finite time frame.
See a live example at reddit PUNTS Cancer or radio reddit's Best of Campaign . To start a campaign with Crowdtilt go https://reddit.crowdtilt.com/
Dwolla & Stripe (redditdonate.com) - This one is brand new. Dwolla (online payments company) and Stripe (payment system for developers) teamed up to create redditdonate.com. This allows for non-profit fundraising where you can pay with Dwolla, or any credit card (through Stripe). Some of the main benefits of their tool:
- Easy to use for mods. Subreddit moderators can drop a donate button into their sidebar allowing redditors the ability to donate directly to the nonprofits, no third-parties holding the money.
- Safe. Limited to verified 501(c)(3) non-profits who have to confirm accounts.
- Open ended time frame.
- Low or no fee (Dwolla: $10 and under = free to send/receive money, $10 and over = flat fee of 25¢, Stripe: 2.9% + 30¢ for any transaction).
/r/TwoXChromosomes (she's the first)
/r/Programming (girls who code and hackNY)
/r/assistance (goods for good and united way nyc)
You can see all the nonprofits currently available and how to use this in a subreddit you moderate at /r/redditDonate