GOFUNDME - a personal fundraising platform

There are several well-known global crowdfunding platforms. The first place for project fees is held by Kickstarter and Indiegogo . After successful fees, it is understood that the project must be completed.

But there is another type of fees - for personal purposes . The first place among such sites is GoFundMe . “People use GoFundMe to raise money for weddings, funerals and everything that happens between these events” [ 1 ]. Indeed, the guy collects money for his first PC , a fee for a diesel engine for a motor home , and a macbook was stolen from musician Michel .

In Russian sources [ 2 ] they write that the platform is global, and you can start collecting from anywhere in the world. If you live in the USA, you can get your money through the WePay payment system. All others work through PayPal. And if so, that I also decided to try to organize a collection for personal purposes.

My goal

For several months I have been developing a modular platform based on FPGAs, on the basis of which it will be possible to assemble digital and analog synthesizers. A lot of work has been done (mainly in the digital part), but more remains. However, musicians do not like the “digit”, the synthesizer should be “analog”. To do this, you need to make analog blocks: filters (VCF), amplifiers (VCA). To debug these modules, you really need an oscilloscope, and my C1-99 oscilloscope of 85 release is already very bad (not synchronized). Here, in fact, the goal is to raise funds for the purchase of an oscilloscope for the project .

Creating your own company

Creating your own company is very simple. Using the wizard, indicate the amount, project name, color. We connect with the account on facebook, twitter and with contacts from our mail. This is followed by a description of what the company is about. Everything is very simple: a few clicks and the company is ready!


I was pleased with the opportunity to create a wish list for my company:

Where do donors come from?

The platform immediately reports that your friends and friends of your friends are potential donors for your gathering. Therefore, it is very important to report the collection on your pages on social networks. As much as possible people should learn about the project. There is even a form for printing a paper ad.

What to do next?

In the process of collecting it is necessary to keep the public informed, to create news. Using the platform, this news can be automatically reposted to your facebook and twitter.

Small Offtop: A Simple Alternative From PayPal

In the meantime, people safely receive fees at gofundme.com, I decided to check the technical part of how the withdrawal works. And what other alternatives are there. As it turned out, any PayPal user can create a Donate button and hang it on his site. By this button, anyone (simply by specifying a card number) will be able to transfer to you any (or fixed) amount to your PayPal wallet. Testing showed that you cannot create a button by transferring donations to USD. You can send only rubles.

The button looks something like this:


To check, we send ourselves 35 rubles. Money debited. A few minutes and now they have come:


Click Accept. And we see a dialogue in which we must choose: 1) accept and convert to USD; 2) accept in rubles and create an account in this currency; 3) wrap the payment back


As a result, we get 23.63 rubles, minus 11.37 rubles in favor of PayPal. Excellent! The method works.

Withdraw funds with GoFundMe

Faced with small dollar problems at PayPal, I decided to see the technical part of withdrawing money from GoFundMe. As a payment system, I immediately stamped the American WePay. No matter how I tried, there was no way to change it to PayPal. If all else fails, then you need to read the instructions. It turns out that GoFundMe refused to work with PayPal. And I can’t create WePay.



Moreover, my country - Russia - is not supported by the platform!



Honestly, I am a little outraged that I can only learn about such technical problems deeply in the documentation. What if a miracle and funds were collected? How to display them? I believe that restrictions on the country should be reported immediately.

And it was necessary to begin with FAQ geektimes.ru/post/242544 (TNX TO Beltoev)

Is my country supported?
Supported countries and currencies include: United States of America ($ USD), United Kingdom (£ GBP), Canada ($ CAD), Australia ($ AUD), and some European Union countries that use the Euro as their official currency (€ EUR )

conclusions

GoFundMe.com platform does not work for Russia.

List of sources used

1. crowdsourcing.ru/article/kraudfandingovaya_platforma_gofundme_preodolela_otmetku_v_100_mln_intervyu_s_soosnovatelem
2. crowdsourcing.ru/sites/29