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Welcome to the official thread for the United States Goon Fund!!! This thread serves as a hub for people to either request money from the fund or help contribute to the fund to help others! In need of help? Click here to submit a request to our google form!! WANT TO DONATE? CLICK HERE FOR DIFFERENT WAYS TO HELP! Please note, effective 6/3/23 - all requests will be capped at $125 due to low funds. This is an attempt to make sure everyone gets money. If your request is over this amount, we WILL keep your request active until we can fulfill it in full at a later date. This cap will be removed when our funds situation improves and any backlog is satisfied. 11/26 - WE ARE LOW ON FUNDS, IMMEDIATE NEEDS MAY NOT BE FULFILLED DUE TO THIS. PLEASE TAKE THIS INTO CONSIDERATION AND DO NOT RELY ON THE FUND FOR THE TIME BEING. 11/29 - Low funds is not an issue at this time, but this is an update in regards to the new 30 day rolling rule. If you request more than $125 over a 30 day period - we will have to limit your request or even deny it. We are not making it a super hard limit. For instance, if you requested $125 - 28 days ago and need more funds - we will accommodate that. This is more to prevent people requesting large sums from the Fund weekly. 4/2 Update: We have gotten our funds issue cleared up, there is a small surplus that exists again and the commitee feels confident to lift the warning for the time being THIS FUND IS NOT ENDORSED BY THE SOMETHING AWFUL FORUMS OR ADMINS. THE ADMINS HAVE NO EXTRA INSIGHT INTO FINANCIALS, DATA COLLECTION, OR HOW THE COMMITTEE WORKS BEYOND WHAT IS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE. CURRENT COMMITTEE MEMBERS AS OF 11/17/23 KINGCOBWEB SPENG31B REALLY QUEER CHRISTMAS DOCBEARD TILER KIWI We have a Discord if you prefer to contact us this way. CURRENT CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES GOON FUND GENERAL Q&A What is the purpose of this thread? When covid first hit, goons in CSPAM were in need of help to pay bills, get emergency payments, or even just get some food. While some goons helped out by giving a couple bucks to people, eventually a fund was created via patreon by Plinkey. Unfortunately, this fund had to be dismantled in late 2022 and that's when goons came together to start a new fund that would not fall victim to the fate of so many other goon projects. What makes this goonfund different from the last, or even from a scam like when that goon raised money to buy pants? During the setup of this fund, it was decided that the best way to organize this to give the most help, with the least amount of trouble caused by bureaucracy, was to set up a nonprofit company and aim to become a federally recognized 501c3 tax-deductible charity. This would also allow the fund to be super transparent in terms of financial presentation, while still allowing the fund to protect the privacy of those who request money. As such, the United States Goon Fund is a true nonprofit corporation headquartered in the state of Washington. 501c3 status is currently in progress as of the time of writing. Why are you not a 501c3 if this was a specific goal of the fund? 501c3 is a federally recognized status of a charity, however, the charity must first be set up as a nonprofit corporation as a state entity first - which this is! Once this first step is complete, the fund must make sure the corporation filing meets IRS qualifications (At least 3 sitting directors on the board, another 501c3 charity set to receive any funds in case the fund is dismantled, waiting 3-4 weeks after receiving an EIN to allow the IRS database to be updated). The goal of this fund is to attain this status as soon as it is deemed possible, and the IRS allows the fund to backdate 501c3 status to the original filing date of the corporation. Can I donate or request money if I'm not in the USA? Sadly, no. Tax codes around international money transfers are... complicated, to put it mildly. To make it easier on this small organization, we can't accept donations from people outside of America, or give money through the fund to people outside of America. If you are in the UK, there is a UK goonfund you can request funds from here. Who do I contact if I have issues with a request, donation, just want to complain First off, you can email us at usgoonfund@gmail.com with a guarantee to reach at least one of the committee members. I want to shitpost in this thread and otherwise poo poo on people doing good deeds or not bootstrapping themselves food Yeah, no. This thread is not the place to do any kind of general shitposting, and good faith is expected in every aspect of this project. If you have a problem with how the fund works, upset about not receiving money, wanting a question answered, concerns you have about being a potential donor, or any suggestions you have to improve what we are doing - we welcome all of this! We just again ask, and expect, your post to be in good faith. Do not try to troll this thread. Q&A FOR REQUESTORS Where do I go to request help? Click here! Who can request money? Anyone with a SA account username! We are certainly willing to help out a friend of yours if they need a small amount of money, but the goal of this thread is to help the goons who post on this website (or once posted on this website) with any issues they are currently having. What can I request money for? As of right now, you can request money for anything you feel you need. If you need money to get groceries, please feel free to request. If you don't think you'll be able to afford your phone bill - we are here! Need money for an uber to get home after work? Send in a request! If you have less emergency needs, we are happy to help with those - but please see below about how we plan to handle your request. Do I need to have proof of what I need the money for? No! We do not require any proof of your need of funds. We are going to assume good faith on your part that you truly do need this money. Someone who is normally of means may still request aid if there is a sudden issue, but the hope is you will be willing to give back when you become of means again. Please consider this fund to be a pool of money the community uses to give and take depending on who needs help right now. Today you may be the one giving, and tomorrow the one taking. Both of these things are fine to do! Just operate in good faith, and this can work for us all. Does the reason I need the money matter? If times are good and there is plenty of money in the fund, not really. But, with the assumption that we may not always have funds available, we will go by either: 1. First come, first serve. 2. Timeframe needed. 3. The need of the request. To give an example, if there is only $100 in the fund at the moment and two requests have been submitted - one in need of paying a utility bill in 10 days for $100 - and the second needing $50 for gas money needed by tomorrow. We will likely target the second request as the need is much more present, and the fund should have recuperated the extra money in time to help the utility bill before their deadline. Can the fund cover my rent? While exceptions can be made, the purpose of this fund is more smaller scale. The fund may be able to help cover a portion of rent, but the fund can't be expected to pay people's entire rents. That said, there is no reason to hold back if you are in that desperate a need. If the fund has the availability, the committee will decide after a vote whether to give the full amount of the request, a partial amount, or to deny the request (the latter option would be rare, and likely only done if the requester is abusing the system). It is worth noting during the interim fund system, no requests were denied - even if several only had partial fulfillments. Should I grovel and beg for a morsel of help from the community? Absolutely not. Needing help from people is NOT a flaw of yours and isn't something you should be ashamed of. You do not need to feel bad for asking for help from this fund - you needing help is exactly why this fund is here! Our country has sadly abandoned many people who don't make 6-7 figures a year. Not having resources or family or friends able to help you is not your fault, and the fund is here specifically to be a safety net so that any goon never has to feel like they have no hope. You're not a burden for needing help. Your google form wants a lot of personal information from me. How can I trust you with this? Unfortunately, we do have to require an email address from everyone who requests in case we need to be able to get in contact with you. As some users do not have platinum status - they cannot send or receive privates messages in case anything goes wrong with their request. We also need to know at least one method that you can receive money through (paypal, venmo, etc,). However, any other personal information is not required and NONE OF THIS IS KEPT!! After your request is fulfilled, he request you submit will be deleted so that only the one member who saw your request will know it was you. Nothing personally identifying is kept except for username, date of request, and amount requested. This information are kept for bookkeeping reasons as well as to prevent any potential abuses. If you are keeping usernames, then that could mean that information could be used to shame me at a later date! If any committee member leaks that information, then they will be removed from their position immediately. If you do still feel weary about any potential leak of your information, you can also request money by PMing a particular committee member you trust with the following information: Amount you need Date you need it by Way to receive money (Paypal username, venmo username, etc) However, do be aware you are at the mercy of the member reading their PMs, compared to the google form. What if I want to make a request in the thread? We strongly discourage you from doing this. We can't stop you, but we do prefer to keep your request anonymous to keep your information safe, and also prevent any potential drama that could come up in the future. How do I get money from the fund? Currently, we have the ability to send money via Venmo & cashapp, with the ability to do paypal but it usually doesn't work for us. We will not be able to send money via Zelle for the foreseeable future as our credit union doesn't support Zelle for business accounts. Q&A FOR DONORS How do I see the financials of the fund? After the end of the month, a committee member will post a summary of the the prior month's inflows versus outflows as well as post information like number of unique donors and unique requests. There is currently no set date for when these financials will be posted in the thread. The fund will maintain public facing financials at all times, including a cash amount at the end of the last month and a current count of cash on hand. MARCH 2023 FINANCIALS APRIL 2023 FINANCIALS MAY 2023 FINANCIALS JUNE 2023 FINANCIALS JULY 2023 FINANCIALS AUGUST 2023 FINANCIALS SEPTEMBER 2023 FINANCIALS OCTOBER 2023 FINANCIALS NOVEMBER 2023 FINANCIALS DECEMBER 2023 FINANCIALS JANUARY 2024 FINANCIALS FEBRUARY 2024 FINANCIALS How do I know if you're spending the money I'm giving wisely? Currently, the only overhead expected is the cost of receiving donations via stripe (2.9% of transaction + $.30 a transaction) and the costs of any integrations, or accounting software. There will be no payroll, lavish trips paid for by the fund, or members not doing their due diligence in making sure a request is not legitimate. How can you be sure a request is legitimate if you do not require proof of need? The committee agrees, unanimously, that good faith must be assumed and expected on the part of the requestor. To begin to doubt a requestor who has shown no reason to be doubted is a path to becoming something that is unrecognizable to a mutual aid fund such as this. Anyone abusing this will eventually be found, but it is something that we would rather deal with when it comes up rather than force the vast majority of trustworthy and in need people to jump through hoops to continue their quest of survival and bettering themselves. If you disagree and won't donate because of that, we understand. Can I deduct any donations off my taxes? Maybe sometime in the future after the fund becomes a 501c3, yes! Also, you're likely incredibly rich if you can do this!! 9/19 Edit: YES!!! WE ARE NOW A US FEDERAL 501(c)(3) CHARITY!!! Enough questions, how do I donate? There are several different ways you can donate - if you want to give money monthly, then that has to process through Stripe. The first, is our one time flexible donation link: Here. This link will let you donate how every much you want and only do it once. What if you want to donate a certain amount every month and want to pick the day it comes out of your account? Well then the following links are for you! Each one is already set to do a recurring amount out of your account once a month, the only difference between the links is the amount. Give $5 Monthly Give $10 Monthly Give $20 Monthly Give $50 Monthly Give $75 Monthly Give $100 Monthly Give $250 Monthly Give $500 Monthly Want to give more monthly? Let us know and we can create a special link for you! Can I give via paypal, venmo, or cashapp? While you *can* do this, we'd prefer to get all funds via stripe as the other sources will charge us more to receive cash. 3/28 Update: Actually, sending us pure cash via Venmo/Cashapp costs us the least amount of money. But it has to be with cash from a bank. If you use a card to transfer money, then you will pay to transfer the money AND we will pay a fee to receive it. Cash only transfer will mean we will pay a small 1.9% fee while you pay nothing - which is about a percent less than a stripe card "swipe". 9/30 Update: We have turned on ACH via STRIPE now. Please see the Stripe links in the next post as ACH is the cheapest way to process payments. PLEASE BE WARNED THAT ACH MEANS YOU MUST HAVE CASH IN YOUR ACCOUNT ON THAT TIME YOU SELECT OR BOTH OF US WILL INCUR NSF FEES!!! GIVE VIA PAYPAL: LINK GIVE VIA VENMO: LINK GIVE VIA CASHAPP: LINK What if I have any issues with my transaction, want to cancel my recurring donation, or otherwise need a refund? 9/30 Edit: We managed to bang rocks together until we figured out Stripe has a customer portal. Check it out here. If you are still having trouble or can't access your account through this link... Please email us at usgoonfund@gmail.com with any of these issues. Make sure to label the subject line appropriately so we can know what you are needing from us. Please also be as prompt as you can with your issue, as refunds will be much easier to process the sooner we know, and we may need time to process any recurring donations, so please don't email us 5 minutes before it's supposed to process. really queer Christmas has issued a correction as of 14:43 on Apr 2, 2024 |
# ? Mar 17, 2023 15:05 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 00:20 |
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WAYS TO DONATE: CLICK HERE FOR OUR ONE TIME DONATION This link will let you donate how every much you want and only do it once. What if you want to donate a certain amount every month and want to pick the day it comes out of your account? Well then the following links are for you! Each one is already set to do a recurring amount out of your account once a month, the only difference between the links is the amount. If you want to donate more than this monthly, please let us know and we can set up a link for you. Give $5 Monthly Give $10 Monthly Give $20 Monthly Give $50 Monthly Give $75 Monthly Give $100 Monthly Give $250 Monthly Give $500 Monthly GIVE VIA PAYPAL: LINK GIVE VIA VENMO: LINK **THIS IS THE CHEAPEST OPTION CURRENTLY SO LONG AS YOU USE A DEBIT CARD** GIVE VIA CASHAPP: LINK We are opening up this thread now to get a head start and let people know we are fully able and capable to send and receive money. We aren't 100% ready (venmo is still an issue) but we need to transition away from the interim and we are capable of receiving our first deposit from Stripe on March 21st. It also fills me with joy to be able to launch this on the year anniversary of my mom's death. I'm very happy to be able to help people in need, as she did all through her life. really queer Christmas has issued a correction as of 18:54 on Sep 30, 2023 |
# ? Mar 17, 2023 15:07 |
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good work to everyone involved sorry about your mom, im sure she would been proud of this effort
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# ? Mar 17, 2023 15:17 |
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Buy me Diablo 4
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# ? Mar 17, 2023 15:30 |
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good work getting this set up, time to start the skim
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# ? Mar 17, 2023 16:12 |
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I need a new gaming laptop and tickets to comic con, tia E: I am not a wealthy goon, but I set up a small recurring donation Nix Panicus has issued a correction as of 16:46 on Mar 17, 2023 |
# ? Mar 17, 2023 16:38 |
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good work lads
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# ? Mar 17, 2023 17:42 |
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Nice work, goons.
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# ? Mar 17, 2023 17:45 |
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Id specifically like to thank really queer Christmas for bringing us through this transition phase. absolutely the mvp of the committee.
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# ? Mar 17, 2023 17:59 |
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kingcobweb posted:Id specifically like to thank really queer Christmas for bringing us through this transition phase. absolutely the mvp of the committee.
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# ? Mar 17, 2023 18:00 |
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Amazing work getting to this point while doing so much good for so many people in the interim!
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# ? Mar 17, 2023 18:09 |
if that that level of money keeps coming in you can start regional issue focused goon franchise charities.
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# ? Mar 17, 2023 18:53 |
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Quick printout of the donations we've received so far in our "official fund stripe account" -- The $100 at the bottom was a committee member testing things out and doing a one-time payment, but everything above that in the list has come from live donors (and these are set as recurring donations). Pretty cool to see things starting to work "the right way."
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# ? Mar 19, 2023 15:55 |
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Thank you to the organizers for getting this off the ground and continuing the cspam goon fund tradition. edit: I hosed up, I shouldn't have sticky'd the thread until I heard back about a couple of issues that has nothing to do with this thread specifically but goon funds in general. I apologize. Dreylad has issued a correction as of 19:57 on Mar 19, 2023 |
# ? Mar 19, 2023 17:02 |
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Thanks for explaining the 501c3 registration to me at the end of the last thread. Glad to see this officially getting off the ground!
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# ? Mar 19, 2023 21:37 |
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vortmax posted:Thanks for explaining the 501c3 registration to me at the end of the last thread. Glad to see this officially getting off the ground! No problem. It's a pretty unintuitive process.
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# ? Mar 20, 2023 16:19 |
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Glad this is up and running. Grest work so far everyone. Really I'm just posting because I missed the old threat closing and this thread fell off the first page, and I really want people to knoe the fund still exists for folks in need and potential donors are aware it's easier to do set and forget contributions now.
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# ? Mar 21, 2023 01:35 |
Started a monthly donation.
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# ? Mar 21, 2023 20:28 |
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Quick update. Good News: Venmo is now a method of payment for us now! Our first stripe payment will be in our account tomorrow or Friday. Bad News: Cashapp won't let us send money until we join a debit card to the account... which we do not have yet. We don't have enough donations to meet the end of month requests - currently we have $258 coming to us after fees, and we have a total of $700 in requests from the start of the fund that has been unfilled. As well as 2 partially filled requests and 1 unfilled request from the interim that we are hoping to meet when we have the funds. Bad News that could be good news: We received a request from a Canadian. We cannot send money to them through the fund, but if anyone would like to help - please pm a committee member and we can give you their payment information to help them out. They are requesting $50. Other news: Jeff and the admins have allowed us to be able to spam out some post-vertisements across the forums to get the word out to other people to donate and request aid. A special thanks to new CSPAM admin vyelkin for helping us with this. I am required to make sure everyone who reads this is well aware that this fund has nothing to do with the Something Awful Forums. The admins, mods, or Jeff himself do not have any special insight into the running of the fund, any special information about the financials (beyond what committee members post), and shouldn't be contacted about any requests or the operation of the fund. I do want to thank everyone who has contributed to the fund so far! Here's to helping people out!!
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# ? Mar 23, 2023 03:48 |
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I just started adding a bit more monthly, it isn't enough to cover but hopefully it can help someone.
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# ? Mar 23, 2023 05:21 |
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bvj191jgl7bBsqF5m posted:Buy me Diablo 4 just gave up my diablo 4 money good luck getting the rest
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# ? Mar 23, 2023 06:58 |
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bvj191jgl7bBsqF5m posted:Buy me Diablo 4 I'll buy you Caves of Qud instead
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# ? Mar 23, 2023 14:44 |
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Thanks for spreading the word around. I popped in 50 buckaroos. Please continue living, thriving, and vibing, goons.
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# ? Mar 23, 2023 14:47 |
liked and subscribed
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# ? Mar 23, 2023 17:54 |
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Thank you to the goon who covered the Canadian request!
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# ? Mar 23, 2023 19:36 |
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Can I send money to the Venmo to help out with short-term demand? I'll set up a recurring thing via Stripe at some point but I can drop some seed money into the Venmo if that's an option.
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# ? Mar 23, 2023 19:42 |
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500 good dogs posted:Can I send money to the Venmo to help out with short-term demand? I'll set up a recurring thing via Stripe at some point but I can drop some seed money into the Venmo if that's an option. you can send one-time payments to Stripe if that works for you
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# ? Mar 23, 2023 19:46 |
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kingcobweb posted:you can send one-time payments to Stripe if that works for you Actually, this is a good opportunity to ask (sorry if I missed it) but can you guys share precisely what information you get from Stripe payments? Full name? An address? edit: Venmo is my default preference because I can do it all without fees and while maintaining pseudonymity, if that's helpful data for this whole process.
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# ? Mar 23, 2023 19:48 |
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500 good dogs posted:Actually, this is a good opportunity to ask (sorry if I missed it) but can you guys share precisely what information you get from Stripe payments? Full name? An address? Stripe gives everything to us, so we see all names, addresses, last 4 of card, card type, etc. We are obviously not looking at these things but if that is a concern for you, I can provide the venmo to you and we can use that.
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# ? Mar 23, 2023 20:27 |
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really queer Christmas posted:Thank you to the goon who covered the Canadian request! This didn't happen, I still don't have Diablo 4
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# ? Mar 27, 2023 15:59 |
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bvj191jgl7bBsqF5m posted:This didn't happen, I still don't have Diablo 4 While this is cspam, I'd like this thread to be a non-shitpost zone please. In other news, paypal has decided to be like cashapp and let us know linking our bank account is not good enough to send people money and we also need a debit card. While getting the card is in the works, essentially, the only place that's letting us send money right now is venmo. If you have made a request via PayPal or cashapp, this will likely come from a members personal account until this issue is resolved. As well, if you do want to send us money through a nonstripe place - venmo is actually better on fees if you want to send cash to us - as they only charge 1.9% compared to stripe 2.9%. If you prefer card, this is much worse as venmo will charge you and us to make that transfer. So if you do want to keep anonymity or would prefer to make cash transactions, feel free to send money to our venmo account. @usgoonfund
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# ? Mar 27, 2023 17:02 |
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Is it feasible to send GoonFund a paper check? It's tedious and it takes longer, but nobody will be taking out a percentage for fees.
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# ? Mar 27, 2023 18:01 |
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Ok, I sent an email, I appreciate your work and I hope you're wildly successful.
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# ? Mar 28, 2023 05:47 |
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A+ thread title Also, just wanted to thank you guys for helping me out with my phone bill around Christmas. It really saved me, I was able to make all the mandatory christmas calls to my family.
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# ? Mar 29, 2023 14:25 |
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I just got a new job and asked for help getting a transit pass to get there (across town). I've had to do things on my own for so long that it was hard to reach out and the swiftness of the response was loving astonishing!! Words can't express my gratitude. I've lurked on this site for over a decade, so I know that there's good people here, but it's still mind-blowing that someone would bother helping me.
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# ? Mar 29, 2023 15:18 |
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Malah posted:it's still mind-blowing that someone would bother helping me.
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# ? Mar 30, 2023 16:16 |
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END OF MARCH FINANCIALS As our first month (well half month) of operation ends, we are now able to present the financials for the fund as of right now. We are presenting as much as we can without jeopardizing anyone's identity. All figures and amounts are anonymized as much as possible, and if anyone feels this is revealing too much please let us know. Anyway on to what happened since March 17th: First off, we have processed 14 requests (either in full or partially) since March 17th - which is one per day. We have given out a total of $1,845.00 during this time. Both of which was an expected baseline... Here's what wasn't expected: Here is the total amount of requests still outstanding which totals $1,796.00. Anything in yellow means that we gave our cap of $200 (except the third request, which I reached out to and they were understanding about the delay). Meaning that to reach our cap of $200 per person, we still need to give out $735 + $101 (Note: $200 was given today to one of the requests in yellow but this will not hit our bank until April, so it won't show up on later financials, but I show the after effects here). That's quite a bit! Normally I'd say it's nothing we can't handle but... it kinda is. I want to preface the remainder of the financials by saying that I don't want to sound like some bogstandard money making charity constantly moaning about needing money, but uh guys we need money. Here is all activity from our various bank accounts, including the venmo account. The 3/15 transactions were paypal verifying our bank account (but they still won't let us use it ), and all the other deposits were stripe payments and withdrawals was money being sent to venmo requesters. So since our paypal doesn't work and venmo is the only way we can give right now, that means that's the only way we've been operating, right? Not exactly: We have been utilizing our personal paypal accounts and sending money to people. We do have plans to pay ourselves back when a reserve is built, but considering the volume of requests that is unlikely to be soon. Either way, we've kept tabs of how much each member is giving during this crisis period. It's also worked great since it's been a way of donating without paying fees And of course, if you thought this is a moneymaking operation - GUESS AGAIN! We are already in the hole and we've gotten no donations in several days - so there's no stripe payment coming and what cash we have is going to be used quickly in our next round of requests. As mentioned at the start, there was $200 sent via venmo earlier today that won't hit our bank till April - so feel free to increase the venmo payouts to $890 and reduce our cash to $302.52! I apologize to not be able to have no real good news at the end of our first month financials, but getting things off the ground is never easy - and Jesus has this project faced a lot of loving bumps. To those who requested, please don't feel like this is targeted at you or feel guilty - im trying to make the people who have money feel guilty so don't get caught up in that. But I hope this look behind the curtain reveals why we had to make the $200 limit during the interim, and why the committee voted to keep it when our financials are just not up to where we want them yet. My goal is to get our monthly income similar to Plinkey's fund - about $3k - which should get us to covering most requests and leaving only some goons partially in the dark. Please let me know if you have any questions or want to point out mistakes. We don't have any formal software yet so I'm preparing this all on google sheets and is thus prone to oddities including weird colors being used for formatting.
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# ? Apr 1, 2023 03:29 |
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A big serious thanks to the goon who just dropped $1k
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# ? Apr 1, 2023 03:41 |
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really queer Christmas posted:A big serious thanks to the goon who just dropped $1k
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 04:08 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 00:20 |
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really queer Christmas posted:A big serious thanks to the goon who just dropped $1k Holy poo poo thank you goon
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 04:43 |