What is appropriate to crowdfund

[mr friendly guy]

Normally I would say anything that is not illegal, not helping someone benefiting for a crime, or something which promotes hatred towards another group. This would thus include things which irritate me, like crowdfunding tens of thousands of dollars for someone to make a potato salad.

Another crowdfund item which caught controversay was a woman who wanted 5000 pounds to take her kids to Disneyworld.

link

A MUM has been forced to take down her appeal for strangers to help fund a trip to Florida’s Disney World for her and her two daughters after being slammed online.
Nikki Smith set up the online crowd-funding page in a desperate bid to secure the overseas holiday, despite the platform being generally used for charity causes.
But the 33-year-old was forced to close down the fundraiser, designed to reward her well-behaved kids, after being trolled on social media.
Speaking to the The Sun, she said: “It’s so hard to save with two children as well as working part time, you’ve got the bills and shopping — it would probably take me 10 years to save up that much and it would be too late then.”
She said she had been inspired to start the fundraiser by a friend who had raised money for their own family trip.

Her plea had been shared more than 18,000 times on Facebook before the mum shut it down, with thousands of people laughing at the appeal.
One woman wrote: “Taking the absolute p***. There are plenty of families who struggle with money that save for holidays regardless of how long it takes. Absolute chancier.”
Another wrote: “Pure cheek right there.”
A third blasted: “This just ruins the actual purpose of the page, there should be an admin who monitors it.”

This one I am a little ambivalent about. On one hand supposedly GoFundMe is mainly for charitable causes, so this is inappropriate. On the other hand if there was a crowdfund page for anything, lets say kickstarter, would that be an issue?

What do people think of the above 2 crowdfunding goals and what do you think should be appropriate to crowdfund?

[Crazedwraith]

The potato salad thing was clearly taking the piss as were the people donating big amounts to it.

As for Go fund me what the site says is:

What can I raise money for?

Most people use GoFundMe to raise money for themselves, a friend or loved one during life's important moments. This includes things like medical expenses, education costs, volunteer programs, youth sports, funerals & memorials - even animals & pets.

So I don't see that a family holiday as really inappropriate. It's not against the rules as such but I'm not surprised people objected.

Really I'd go with what you said. As long as you're not asking for anything illegal it's all good. But no one's got an obligation to actually fund anything so don't be surprised if you get zilch.

[Zixinus]

I think there is one important criteria missing: insurance that what is crowdfunded is real and the money will actually go to that cause. I think that's far more important criteria than trying to gauge "is this cause charitable enough?". Stupid causes are not really a problem because nobody is compelling people to throw money at stupid things, but fraud is a serious problem.

I would say the mom taking her kids to Disneyworld counts if its not against the rules of the crowdfunding thing. Yeah, it's an arguably selfish and definitely indulgent cause but nobody is compelled to give her a buck. And I say that as long as she shows pictures and videos that she used that money for that purpose once she got the money, I'd say it's okay. Maybe even show a bill that they spent most of the money on the trip for accountability's sake.

I mean, Cards Against humanity raised 100k to dig a hole. That they then filled. And no, as far as I can tell they didn't pour the money to anything charitable either.

Also, "genuine" causes can be misleading too.

There was also the Triton, the impossible rebreather that got money too.

[The Romulan Republic]

Wouldn't "Not going to anything illegal" cover fraudulent fundraising campaigns, seeing as how fraud is illegal?

[Lord Revan]

Wouldn't "Not going to anything illegal" cover fraudulent fundraising campaigns, seeing as how fraud is illegal?

Technically yes, but there's the issue of proving something is a fraud, which does seem to be a problem of sorts with crowd funding, both in terms of those asking for money and those (claiming to) back the cause.

[aerius]

If it's not illegal or against the terms & conditions of the crowdfunding site, it's fair game. If I want to fund an orgy of hookers and blow booze for my son's 18th birthday and people are willing to contribute towards this noble goal, then what can I say, all the more power to me. It's a fully consenting transaction between adults, I'm not lying about anything and they know upfront what their money is going towards. You might think it's repulsive and have some moral objections or whatever, but so what? Who are you to judge?

[Solauren]

Aerius hit it on the head nicely.

I have seen Go Fund Me (and similiar websites) pages for a variety of things my friends or associates were doing.

They range from help paying for their father's funeral (sudden death while on vacation in mexico and a fight with the insurance company delayed the return of his body for several weeks).....

to helping pay for a wedding or medical treatments.....

needing money to take time off work to 'destress'.....

To wanting to buy something beyond their means.....

... to needing money for a beer fueled orgy.


Now, obviously, some of those are not what those sites are intended for. But, hey, it's all legal.

Really, it's not different then standing on a corner with a sign saying "need Money". So long as you don't go around harassing people, or standing in their way, or on private property, what's the harm?

Now, I'm interesting in the possible legal implications of Go Fund Me and similiar pages. I know in the US, Kickstarter funds count as business income (2 Kickstarters I backed got hit due to that and ended up falling through), and I believe they are in Canada.

That beer fueled party people paid for could end up costing you taxes in the long run.

[Sea Skimmer]

This one I am a little ambivalent about. On one hand supposedly GoFundMe is mainly for charitable causes, so this is inappropriate. On the other hand if there was a crowdfund page for anything, lets say kickstarter, would that be an issue?

This type of request is very specifically against the terms of service of Kickstarter.